Over many years Clarke Ching – founder of TOC Thinkers – has developed a valuable series of interviews by talking to authors and practitioners in the field of “Theory of Constraints” and “Critical Chain. He is interested in the story behind the story. I consider myself very honored to be included in Clarke’s circle of interview partners. Here you find the entire interview.
Be Fast Or Be Gone available as e-book
Today, “Be Fast Or Be Gone” is also available as an e-book.
Check it out: Amazon (Kindle) or Barnes and Nobles (nook)
Be Fast Or Be Gone
The idea of my newest book “Be Fast Or Be gone” came to me while working on a contribution for my blog “The Point”. I have posted a number of contributions talking about the reasons why Critical Chain is a very effective approach. I explained how it works. I elaborated on the impact that I have seen in varous industries such as large Fortune 500 pharmaceuticals. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to tell the entire story of a Critical Chain rollout?”
Up to this point I used various methods to educate people on Critical Chain: presentations, group exercises, case studies and blogs – just to name a few. Still, at the end of the day, it is not simple for people to fully grasp the Critical Chain concepts and their impact, if they haven’t seen them at work first hand. People need to experience the power of planning, the relentless focus on project execution to understand what is possible. Typically it takes eight to twelve months observing an implemenation to fully understand what I had talked about in all the discussions leading up to an engagement. Very often, executives come to me a year into a rollout and tell me that now they understand what I was talking about when we started our relationship.
Hence, this book.
With “Be Fast Or Be Gone” I wanted to give an insight into the dynamics of a Critical Chain rollout. I wanted to tell the story about the road blocks that typically need to be overcome. I wanted to talk about the possibilities that are opening up. I wanted to talk about the behaviors that are changing. In short, I wanted to talk about everything that goes on beyond the technicalities of the scheduling software.
This book is about a father, Mike Knight, who learns that his eight-year-old son Tim has a rare form of brain cancer. He makes the agonizing decision to quit his job and go to work for Altus Labs, a pharmaceutical company developing a possible treatment. Mike is in for the challenge of his life as he races against time to implement Critical Chain Project Management at Altus Labs. Critical Chain Project Management is an enterprise solution that incorporates methodology and software tools to help organizations move to a relay-race “faster and better” paradigm. Companies that implement the Critical Chain approach routinely experience off-the-chart returns on investment.
A few of my peers and colleagues were so kind to publicly comment on the book. I am humbled by their testimony.
Be Fast or Be Gone is a fascinating treatment of the power of focus, applied to the often complex world of project and strategy management. The answers to increased productivity, though simple, are often subtle and hidden beneath old and accepted practices, requiring an incisive and radically rational viewpoint. Scherer’s book (and the ProChain process it reflects) beautifully illumines such a process.
— David Allen, Author, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Andreas Scherer provides a highly engaging explanation of Critical Chain and describes its application to development projects. Every R&D director should read this book and every project manager should become a Critical Chain expert. Be Fast or Be Gone will open your eyes to the possibilities of realistic schedules and on-time project completion.
— Dr. Steven D. Eppinger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management
Using the principles espoused in Andreas Scherer’s book Be Fast or Be Gone, pharmaceutical companies can substantially shorten their research and development timelines, allowing drugs to be available to patients much more quickly.
— Dr. Hugh Davis, Vice President, Centocor – a Johnson and Johnson company
I found this heartfelt tale to be a grabber. What a powerful way to illuminate that racing the clock is of vital import, not only to a company’s leadership posture, but ultimately to the huge impact it can have on customers’ and patients’ well-being!
— Dr. Fred Wiersema, Customer Strategist and Author, The Discipline of Market Leaders
Be Fast or Be Gone puts “meaning” into accelerating projects. Better yet, it puts METHOD into achieving Dramatic, Reliable improvements in speed and quality content in any project management environment. A gripping , understandable, helpful novel for every person wanting to get things done!
— Professor James R. Holt, Engineering & Technology Management, Washington State University
Riveting. Finally, a book that shows us in a practical and engaging way the real impact project management and Critical Chain concepts can have. This story of a father’s quest to save his little boy is extremely real; you will easily identify with the book’s characters. A must read.
— Eric Morfin, Ph.D., PMP; Founder, BioPharmaPM; Partner, Critical Skills Inc.
I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. You can read a sample chapter here. The book is available at an internet book store near you.
The Myth About Multitasking
To make it short: Humans are not good at multitasking.
Yet, knowledge workers in Corporate America are being asked to do exactly that. They are being expected to stay on top of incoming email exceeding easily hundred, in some cases hundreds a day. They are being asked to be reachable, go to meetings and handle multiple assignments with ease. Multitasking is seen as a virtue. The ability to do so receives praise. However, multitasking comes at a significant cost.
In my work with knowledge workers, I find many examples that show that our brains cannot fully focus when we multitask. People take longer to complete tasks and are predisposed to error. When we attempt to complete many tasks at one time, or rapidly shift between them, errors go way up and it takes far longer. It takes more time to get the jobs done than if the tasks were done sequentially. This is largely because the brain is forced to restart and refocus. A study found that in the interim between each exchange, the brain makes no progress whatsoever. Therefore, multitasking people not only perform each task less suitabe, but lose time in the process.
Even computers are not good at multitasking as we find out when we open too many applications and windows on our desktop machines. Our system slows down and sometimes comes even to a stop. We need to reboot then. In computer science speak this effect is called “thrashing”. Our computers use hard-drives as extended memories. If they cannot hold enough data in their memories they push them out to disk. If you have enough applications running in parallel the system performance is reduced because files have to be swapped from the computer memory to the hard-disk back and forth. You can bring any computer system to its knees by increasing the number of parallel processes.
A similar thing happens with the human brain. Let’s say we write a document (task 1) and get interrupted by a phone call (task 2).
- Writing a document requires focus. Blood rushes to the anterior prefrontal cortex – the switchboard of our brain. It basically activates the brain region required to perform the task at hand.
- Then there is the identification of the neurons within this region capable of completing the task as well as the triggering of the actual task processing itself. This process is called “rule activation” and takes several tenths of a second to accomplish. We begin to write.
- While we are typing, our sensory system picks up the ring tone of our cell phone. Speaking and engaging in conversation are handled by a different brain region. Via the anterior prefrontal cortex the process of disengaging from our writing task is managed. We store enough information to resume this task later. Then, the new task 2 is started (see steps 1 and 2).
- We start another rule activation for task 2. We have real measurable switching costs.
These are the steps that occur between two tasks. Imagine to what extent we are taxed with switching costs in a work environment, where we process daily hundreds of emails, tens of calls and deal with multiple project assignments. Anything that can be done to bring focus in the work day, anything that can be done to bring hours of uninterrupted work time will enhance productivity.
I have found in my work with corporate clients that people who are regularly interrupted take up to fifty percent (50%) longer to finish their tasks. Also, the amount of errors goes up about that much. There are very effective excercises to demonstrate this effect. Keep that in mind when you organize your day.
Lilly’s CEO Lechleiter on Critical Chain
In a recent Business Week article Lilly’s CEO Lechleiter outlined his strategy to deal with business challenges his company is facing: “Lilly stands to lose $10 billion in annual revenues between now and the end of 2016—almost half its 2009 sales—as patents on three key drugs expire. To replace that, the company must pick up the pace of drug development.” Lilly is not alone. Almost any major pharmaceutical company faces similiar issues. In order to speed up their drug development process, Lilly uses Critical Chain as their sole operating platform to manage drug development projects. Here you find the entire article.