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A Guide to Implementing the Theory of
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Boyd
Meets Goldratt U.S. Air Force
Colonel John Boyd inventor of the OODA loop, maneuver warfare, and “father”
of both the F15 & F16 fighters (1) had a concept called “building
snowmobiles (2).” He used this as a
metaphor for analyzing a problem and then synthesizing a solution – something
completely new composed of entirely unrelated but pre-existing parts. Bill Dettmer has done exactly that in
constructing a model for lean and rigorous strategy development using
concepts and tools from, amongst others; the U.S. Military Strategic Planning
Model, and Goldratt’s Thinking Process toolset. Ask yourself;
have you ever seen a company strategy that you could hang on a wall so that
everyone could see and understand the strategy almost at a glance? Well maybe not yet, but Dettmer shows how
to do just that (3). The aim is to
produce implementable and effective strategy and supporting tactics to enable
an organization to move towards its goal as quickly as possible. Moreover, like all other Theory of
Constraint developments, you should be able with to do this yourself with a
minimum of effort. Sound
interesting? Let’s have a look. If you are
involved in organizational strategy development then you are probably well
aware of the limitations and current disarray of the various strategy
approaches (4). If you are in a
management or leadership position you might have wondered in fact whether the
current effort expended on strategy versus the actual results obtained really
warrants the effort made in the first place.
The constraint management model for strategy overcomes these
limitations by taking a systemic/global optimum approach. Dettmer has synthesized the constraint
management model for strategy from relevant parts of the strategy planning
schools, hoshin kanri, the U.S. military strategic planning model, Boyd’s
OODA loop, and maneuver warfare. The model can
be expressed as a simple 7 step process.
If you click
back to our discussion on the cloud page in Tool Box you will find a
paragraph called “The Cloud And The OODA Loop” have a quick look at
that and then page back here. It might
help crystallize a better understanding of the structure of the diagram
above. Let’s, then, have a look at each of the steps in the
model in turn. The key to this
methodology is the use of an intermediate objectives map. An intermediate objectives map is a
pre-requisite tree without the obstacles.
It uses necessity-based logic to map cause and effect, in this case
the goal, necessary conditions and critical success factors of the
organization at some period into the future.
As such it establishes the question “why change.” Step 2 addresses “what to change,” steps 3
& 4 address “what to change to,” and steps 5 & 6 address “how to
cause the change.” Let’s draw a
generic intermediate objectives map to show the relationships for the first
step.
It has been
said that if you don’t know the goal of your organization, then that
is the constraint of the organization.
The strategic intermediate objectives map – step 1 of the constraint
management model for strategy – allows you to develop and define the goal and
the necessary conditions of the organization. The
intermediate objectives map doesn’t, however, survive in this form in the
final product. It is just the starting
point. From this starting point it becomes
easy to produce a current reality tree that lists the symptoms of the gap
between where we are now, and where we should be now or in the future if we
want to support the vision in the intermediate objectives map. Senge called this gap creative
tension (5). For Boyd the
mismatches and discontinuities that the gap represents are to be celebrated;
Hammond summed this up as follows. “It
is the mismatch, the lack of fit, the incongruity, that
is the spur to creativity. It is our
recognition of it and ability to contend with it and make something of the
opportunity that determines our success or failure, our prosperity, the
quantity and quality of life itself (6).”
Recognizing the mismatch is the heart of the OODA loop and the heart
of the Constraint Management Model for Strategy too. Of course the
current reality tree is the tool that allows us to examine mismatches with
unparalleled ease, and moreover drill down to the underlying cause. Let’s draw a simple example of a current
reality tree.
Reducing our
symptoms or undesirable effects to one core problem, or one core conflict, or
even a few select critical problems allows us to deal with these using clouds. We set out to remove the core problem or
break the core conflict with a new assumption about reality – an injection,
or if you like, a countermeasure. We
create a transformation. We can take
the injection or injections that we developed above and use them to build
back to a future reality tree, making sure that we negate or overcome all the
undesirable effects that we presented in the current reality tree (and that
we don’t create any more). We also
need to include and incorporate the critical success factors, necessary
conditions, and the goal that we produced in the first step, the intermediate
objectives map – but here it is now converted from necessity-based logic to
sufficiency-based logic. We can show
this using our rather Spartan example from above.
However what
hasn’t been shown here is that in essence the bare branches of our previous
necessity-based logic intermediate objective map (step 1) can, indeed should,
be fleshed out in-full with additional “leaves” of sufficiency-based
entities. It has been left in its
original “bare necessity” for clarity here.
The injections are our tactics – they were developed using the cloud
method. The future
reality tree is our map or our design of the future. Now, all we need is a plan to enable us to
execute our tactics in order to allow them to unfold as we require. The basic
planning tool of Theory of Constraints is the pre-requisite tree – sequence
of intermediate objectives that must be implemented to ensure that the
injection can be actioned. These
intermediate objectives are the detail of our tactics that support the
strategy as per our design of the future. Let’s redraw
our simple example, keeping our color coding from above, and adding several
intermediate objectives prior to each injection.
A sequence
isn’t a plan by itself. For a complete
plan we must also add timing to the sequence.
The pre-requisite tree sequence is however a perfect pro forma framework for a Critical Chain project
management plan. Critical Chain is to
project management what drum-buffer-rope is to manufacturing – check it
out. There are references to this
method listed in the bibliography. We have
mentioned planning and control several times in these pages. Critical Chain is the planning stage of
project management. Buffer management
is the control function. If you recall
from our discussion of supply chain and manufacturing buffers, they really
are an exception reporting device.
Buffers and their critical placement are the mechanism that makes
Theory of Constraints logistical applications so damn robust. Again check the Critical Chain references
if you are unfamiliar with this application in order to see how buffer
management is applied in this situation. The last step
serves two purposes. One is the
evaluation of the current plan. The
other is a less frequent and more “big picture stuff” – a periodical review
to make sure the direction that the company is taking is indeed the one that
the company wants to take. It is very
difficult to do justice in these pages to significant developments in Theory
of Constraints such as Stein’s TQM II which was reduced to a few paragraphs
in the page on quality/TQM II, or Schragenheim’s S-DBR, or Caspari’s
Constraints Accounting for that matter.
And so, too, with Dettmer’s Constraint Management Model for Strategy –
reduced here to a page. But there is a
solution. Go and read Dettmer’s
original work for yourself. If you
have a responsibility for the direction of your organization or even just an
interest, then you owe it to yourself (and no one else) to examine the power
of this method. There is a
simple, logical, systemic, and systematic way to iteratively develop and
execute strategy in a process of ongoing improvement that does justice to
both OODA and the Thinking Process.
And of course you can always hang it on the wall if necessary. (1) Coram, R.,
(2002) Boyd: the fighter pilot who changed the art of war. Little, Brown and Co., pg 6. (2) Hammond,
G. T., (2001) The mind of war: John Boyd and American security. Smithsonian Institution Press, pp 156 &
182. (3) Dettmer,
H. W., (2003) Strategic navigation: a systems approach to business
strategy. ASQ Quality Press, 302 pp. (4) Mintzberg,
H., Ahlastrand, B., and Lampel, J., (1998) Strategy safari: a guided tour
through the wilds of strategic management.
The Free Press, 406 pp. (5) Senge, P.
M., (1990) The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning
organization. Random House, pp
150-155. (6) Hammond,
G. T., (2001) The mind of war: John Boyd and American security. Smithsonian Institution Press, pp 191-192. This Webpage Copyright © 2003-2009 by Dr K. J.
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