Learn
The method, in eight short lessons
About three minutes each. Read them in order, or jump to the one you need. Terms with a dotted underline show a definition; the full list is in the glossary.
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Lesson 1
The chain
Your business holds what its weakest link holds. Strengthening any other link changes nothing.
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Lesson 2
There is only one
At any moment one thing limits your whole system. Finding it is the entire game.
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Lesson 3
Symptoms vs. cause
Low cash, stress, slow delivery: these are effects. Ask why five times.
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Lesson 4
The five steps
Identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate, repeat. Step four comes after two and three, always.
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Lesson 5
Rules are constraints too
Most constraints are policies and beliefs. They cost nothing to change and are the hardest to see.
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Lesson 6
Starved vs. overloaded
A constraint at 25% utilisation is not a capacity problem. It is a feed problem.
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Lesson 7
The three questions
What to change, what to change to, how to cause the change, and the five pictures that answer them.
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Lesson 8
How to read a tree
"In order to… we must…" and "If… then…", plus the eight ways an arrow can be wrong.