While taking the DevOps Foundation course, through ITSM Zone , we explored the concepts of
constraints. What I found most interesting was the way that this could be
applied to even the simplest of everyday activities, beyond the application in
IT. The theory of constraints is a practice in the ‘First Way’ of DevOps. This
theory outlines that every process has a potential for a bottleneck. In the
journey to improve efficiency we seek to identify and reduce the impact for
these bottlenecks.
In some cases we may not be able to remove the
constraints but part of the discovery is to identify how best to minimize the
effect of the constraints. The output of this identification recognizes that:
Improving constraints is an effective way to improve a process
Like most things a process is only as successful as its weakest link
Every process has at least one constraint
When we are talking about constraints we really need to consider
the way that they impact the process before and after the bottleneck. Think about
it, if we improve the flow before the constraint we could have the work log jam
at the bottleneck and if we make improvements after the constraint then the
process will be twiddling their thumbs.
In other words reduce the impact of the constraint.
A method to do this is using the ‘Five Focusing Steps’ to
identify and eliminate constraints.
Step 1 – Identify the constraint – Need I say more
Step 2 – Exploit the constraint – using quick wins to
make some immediate improvements
Step 3 – Subordinate the constraint – review all other
process activities to ensure they support the constraints
Step 4 – Elevate the constraint – If the constraints
still exists this step looks at mitigating it if it can’t be eliminated
Step 5 – Prevent inertia – like any improvement cycle,
wash rinse and repeat
If we were to look at this in an everyday example I would
take my local fast food drive-thru. A few months ago I was looking for a quick
bite and decided that since the drive-thru looked not too busy that I would
just drive through. As I sat in line for what seemed to be forever I wondered
if I should just leave but since I was hungrier than ever I rode it out. As I
got to the order speaker to place my order I saw that there was only one car
ahead paying and another ahead if it which was waiting for its food so I thought
the worst was behind me. Unfortunately I sat there for another 5 minutes until
I got my order, which by then I almost forgot why I went there in the first
place.
Last week I was once again in a rush and needed to grab a
bite. As I passed the same restaurant I saw that here was a sign that said “try
our newly improved drive-thru” being a sucker for punishment I decided to try
it out. As I pulled in, the queue looked significantly longer than before. I started
to wonder if this was going to be a mistake. However the order speaker was
positioned at the beginning of the drive-thru entry so I ordered as soon as I
went in. Hardly taking my foot off the brake I arrived at the payment window
where I asked the manager who was there about the change. He said that before
the bottleneck was that the ordering and payment activities were too close
together and because of this it slowed down the start of making the food. Spacing
the process out in the drive-thru gave the restaurant the opportunity to complete
the orders consistently.
In other words they identified their constraint and made
an adjustment for it to improve service. This distance adjustment made a huge
difference in the way that service was delivered without impacting the internal
restaurant operations.
Over the next few weeks I will post a new tidbit from the
training and how it relates to what I have experienced. Feel free to send me
questions, comments or any other feedback
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Labels: DevOps, ITIL, ITSM, Service Management, Training