Hired Thought

Category: Theory Of Constraints

  • Tasshin Interviews Ben on Strategy

    Tasshin Interviews Ben on Strategy

    This is a rapidfire overview of strategic methods that Tasshin Fogleman and I recorded back in July of 2020. He’s edited it together for the Reach Truth Podcast, which you can check out at his YouTube channel here. I recommend watching the video directly on YouTube, since there are important links in the description that…

  • The Five Focusing Steps for Human Systems

    The Five Focusing Steps for Human Systems

    I don’t normally read textbooks just for fun. Ok, that’s not true. I wouldn’t normally read this textbook just for fun. It is, however, excellent reference material and worth a skim every once in a while. The textbook is Bill Dettmer’s The Logical Thinking Process, which aims to articulate and standardize the practices described by…

  • Who Is the User, Really?

    Who Is the User, Really?

    Thinking Globally When Constructing the Value Chain The Theory of Constraints teaches us the difference between local and global thinking with respect to systems and their performance. To think locally is to optimize each individual component of a system with the expectation that the overall result will be an optimized system. We know the opposite to…

  • Batches and Iterations

    The following is a rather unpolished glimpse into how we think about batch sizes and iterations. First, we expect our system to have a goal. For a software-building system made of people like ourselves, the goal is to deliver value in the form of working software. We think of “batches” as the units of work…

  • Buffer Management for Meal Prepping

    This post describes an attempt to apply theory practically (praxis) to solve a silly little problem. My wife and I are getting serious about cutting our restaurant spending, so we have been cooking large batches of food to store and eat throughout the week. Cooking in large batches like this is a practice known as…