About this Presentation

This presentation is an interview by Alex Knight of Dr. Goldratt about measurement. How is a goal defined? How might we measure success towards moving to the goal? How might we define the goal and measures for a for-profit versus a for-purpose environment? Never ever put certainty on uncertainty. Story of Lamore Winter: What is your goal in life? Lamore: To make sure that people do not need illness. If you keep asking: What for? And you keep getting the higher objective you think it will go on indefinitely but you get to the different identicals. Here you are back in a circle each leading to another in the circle. In some cases it is three identicals in some cases it is more. Here all there are identicals in achieving the goal. For-profit organizations, make money now and in the future; provide satisfaction to customers now and in the future and provide satisfaction and security for employees now and in the future. Many things in life cannot be quantified. In this set of identicals there is one maybe two that cannot be quantified. What is quantified takes precedence over non-quantified identicals. People are using measurements instead of thinking. People prefer quantitative over qualitative measures. When uncertainty is involved in decision making, probabilities must be associated with outcomes.

What Will You Learn

To help you get the most value from this session, we’ve highlighted a few key points. These takeaways capture the main ideas and practical insights from the presentation, making it easier for you to review, reflect, and apply what you’ve learned.

Plane
IBM's services division has evolved significantly over the years, with more than half of IBM's revenue today coming from services.
Goldratt's Theory of Constraints can be applied to improve services business, particularly in resource and project management.
Critical Chain Project Management can be used in conjunction with replenishment for services to manage multiple projects while accommodating customer's desired dates.

Instructor(s)

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Dr. Eliyahu (Eli) M. Goldratt was an educator, author, physicist, philosopher and business leader, but first and foremost, he was a thinker who provoked others to think. Characterized as unconventional, stimulating, and a "slayer of sacred cows," Eli urged his audience to examine and reassess their business practices and conventional paradigms.

Eli Goldratt is known as the father of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), a process of ongoing improvement that continuously identifies and leverages a system's constraints in order to achieve its goals. He introduced TOC's underlying concepts to a wide audience through his business novel, The Goal which has been recognized as one of the best-selling business books of all time. First published in 1984, The Goal has been updated three times and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. It has been translated into 32 languages. Since then, TOC has continued to evolve and develop, and today it is a significant factor within the world of management best practices.

Heralded as a "guru to industry" by Fortune magazine and "a genius" by Business Week, Dr. Goldratt continued to advance the TOC body of knowledge throughout his life, building on the Five Focusing Steps (known as the process of ongoing improvement or POOGI) with TOC-derived tools such as Drum-Buffer-Rope, Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) and the Thinking Processes. He authored ten other TOC-related books, including four business novels.

Born in Israel on March 31, 1947, Dr. Goldratt earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tel Aviv University, and a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. He is the founder of TOC for Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing TOC Thinking and TOC tools to teachers and their students, and Goldratt Consulting. In addition to his pioneering work in business management and education, Dr. Goldratt holds patents in a number of areas ranging from medical devices to drip irrigation to temperature sensors. He died on June 11, 2011, at the age of 64.

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