You’re sold on ToC.
But why is it so hard to get results?
THEORY-OF-CONSTRAINTS COACHING FOR THE AGILE WORKPLACE
You’ve been trying to solve 21st century problems with 20th century rules
You’re fascinated by ToC. You’ve read the books. Watched the webinars. Seen the success stories.
You’re convinced ToC can work wonders for your business.
You’ve applied the practices to the best of your knowledge.
But something isn’t working and you can’t put your finger on it. Plus you’re worried about pulling the wrong lever and breaking your business in the process.
“I thought this was supposed to be obvious.”
I hear you.
I’ve been where you are.
Perhaps it’s because …
And maybe …
It’s time to upgrade your toolkit.
Hi, I’m Clarke Ching, “The Bottleneck Guy”
You might know me from my books.
Like The Bottleneck Rules and Rolling Rocks Downhill.
I discovered Eli Goldratt’s work and the Theory of Constraints (ToC) back in 1996. (Even before the Agile Manifesto.)
Over the years I’ve mastered how to get million-dollar results with ToC in software-driven companies like yours.
Now I help CIOs, CTOs, Agile coaches, executives, senior managers and tech consultants use ToC to transform their stressful workplaces into truly agile teams that deliver faster, thrive better and make more money.
You, too, can get results that stick—one small step at a time. And get more agile than if you only did Agile.
“I’ve been reading Goldratt for 20 years. I’m an academic type and I love the idealism in his writings. However, I couldn’t translate his works down to the shop floor to get buy-in.
Clarke has done the translation for me!
Clarke’s work really helps everyone in our organization understand ToC and our buy-in has gone through the roof!”
—Len Morris, Owner and CEO of StairSupplies.com and ViewRail.com
“Our buy-in has gone through the roof!”
You’re not building sports cars. You’re building software.
Here’s the problem:
The old ToC world revolved around machines.
But in an old-school factory, machines don’t have opinions.
Your world is much more sophisticated; your magic, much harder to measure.
Your assembly line consists of delicate lines of code, synapses of brilliant brains and human beings who have heartbeats. (And they’re not beating to the same drum.)
Your “factory” consists of teams. And those teams have dysfunctions. They’re not communicating, collaborating and complementing one another as well as you know they could be.
Instead of facing the problem together, they point fingers at each other. They find it easier to keep busy and do their own thing. Which is a recipe for dissatisfaction and inefficiency.
And so people’s hearts bleed, their ears bleed and your company bleeds.
Money.
Your culture is suffering, your productivity is stagnating and you’re stuck in a vicious loop between speed and quality.
You wish you had the luxury of seeing your problems and your solution in hindsight—you know, kind of like those clean and easy textbook examples.
If only you could just ask an expert how to convert theory to practice in your digital world.
Now you can.
“I was fortunate to spend several months working with Clarke as part of a major digital transformation project.
Clarke’s bottleneck thinking and wonderful simplicity that he brings to what could be a complex concept unlocks the value of this technique.
Our project has gone from a nightmare to highly successful, and I honestly attribute Clarke’s input and techniques to mastering this project.
—Daniel Blank, ICP
“Our project has gone from a nightmare to highly successful”
“Over the 20 years I’ve known Clarke, I’ve worked with him on multiple occasions. Many times I’ve said to him, “Go over there and see what you can find.” That’s all the direction he needs. I can point to an issue and say, “I think that team could use some help.”
He then guides the people to see the issues in a different way and gain the knowledge to work together differently. He creates lasting change in the individuals. And he does this over a really short period of time.
Some consultants go in and create waves of disruption. Clarke doesn’t do that. He like to teach and educate and let people find their own way. And it works. It creates lasting change.”
—Alistair Law, BCS Fellow, Business Executive, Founder AL Innovate
“Creates lasting change in individuals”
ToC was built last century for mechanized environments.
Let me help you humanize it.
Let’s face it. You’re not dealing with iron and steel here.
ToC’s Drum Buffer Rope mechanism will only take you so far. To go further you need more than a drum-beat, you need a heart beat. You need to feel the pulse of your people. But finding that pulse isn’t easy. You need someone to show you. To help you listen. To help you see. Because you can’t solve something you can’t see or hear.
I’ve spent a quarter of a century helping people untangle and clean up complex problems in IT and Agile software development by adapting Goldratt’s logistic and thinking tools to businesses just like yours.
You need a modernized version of ToC so you can:
Create your own proprietary process using Agile and Theory of Constraints so you can solve the right problems the right way at the right time, anytime
Get all the benefits promised by Agile and see your productivity and profits soar
Fix your culture and watch your workplace calm down
Transform your due-date-driven “shop floor” into a thriving team where everyone feels safe to contribute
Adopt and adapt ToC’s Critical Chain project management methodology so you can deliver on time or early (especially when delivering on time is commercially important)
The best bit is, your Agile coaches will love it. Heck, everyone will love it.
If you’re ready to look at your problems square in the face and solve them sideways with a geeky, quirky master guide at your side …
If you’re ready to graduate from your Grandad’s ToC ...
If you’re ready to zig when everyone else is zagging ...
How much money is your business losing to invisible, unmanaged bottlenecks?
There’s only one way to find out.
Ask for help.
But here’s the problem: there’s only one of me.
And I don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.
Which may be exactly why you need me.
I don’t work with businesses that won’t get anything out of working with me.
So if I’m not your guy, I’ll be the first to let you know.
To give me a try risk-free, we’ll need to talk.
No suit, no suitcase, no BS, no bruised egos?
Nope. None of that. Just real coaching for real ROI.
No one wants to watch a designer suit delivering a pious presentation to a snoozing audience.
No one wants a prepackaged plan that’s dead on arrival and gets buried in the coffin of a filing cabinet.
Unless you’re happy to just pretend like you’re solving problems.
With me, I promise, you’ll do plenty of heavy lifting and yet feel the weight lift off your shoulders. (But you’ll enjoy it!)
With me you’ll get your hands dirty and help your company deliver better products smoother and faster. (And your people will be happier!)
You’ll be the one who turns your tech teams into cash cows. I’ll be your guide. Your helper.
If you’re not afraid of sharpening your thinking tools and becoming a ToC hero in your own right, then I’m your guy.
Bottom line: you’ll get results. Quickly and quietly.
“The thing that makes Clarke different is his ability to establish instant trust. When other consultants come in, they poke and prod at what you’re doing, and you worry, ‘What’s going to happen?’
But with Clarke, you don’t feel the need to brace or shield yourself. He doesn’t come in with a playbook or agenda. He makes you feel like he’s joining your team as a coach and mentor.
And in your journey of discovery, whether individually or as a team, you’ll come across these golden nuggets—these a-ha moments of truth—that make you a better person and bring you closer to the solution.”
—Miryana Penuvceski, WiseTech Global Change Leader
“A-ha moments of truth”
“Clarke worked with us when we were going through a particularly tumultuous time at work. There was an exceedingly complex technical project to be delivered, coupled with a high turnover in engineering.
Clarke’s weekly coaching of our engineering leadership was very beneficial. He helped us distill the bubbling cauldron of problems to the ones we needed to focus on.
I always looked forward to our weekly call with Clarke and the insight he would share with us.”
—Neil Crawford, Technology Leader and Software Engineer
“Distill the bubbling cauldron of problems”
Bringing 25 years of ToC expertise to your Agile workplace. Because you don’t need more theory. You need ROI at breakneck speed.
ToC coaching is right for you if you want to:
transform your stressful workplace into a calm, collaborative culture
turn your tech teams into money machines
go from surviving to thriving
want buy-in from your team, even if they don’t know ToC
do ToC without second-guessing yourself
get ToC in practice, not just in theory
Consulted by
“At WiseTech we’re always very clear about where we are in our journey to achieving what we set out to accomplish. So it’s really important for us to see evidence that we’re getting value out of our investment and that it’s working for us—and we’re very disciplined about that. While we are happy to take risks, we do so in a managed and deliberate fashion.
Clarke’s deep knowledge of the software industry and the Theory of Constraints aligns very nicely with our approach. But his guidance and coaching allowed us to go deeper, helping us better manage our bottlenecks and made us progress towards our objectives faster, and with less risk.”
—Linda Mandin, Productivity Change Leader, WiseTech Global
