From the library
George Stalk Jr., Thomas Hout, 1990
In one paragraph
Stalk and Hout's argument that elapsed time is a competitive weapon: compress the cycle and cost, quality and share improve together rather than trading off. The contribution is treating delay as the thing to attack rather than a symptom. Most useful in operations with long queues and many handoffs. Least useful outside manufacturing-shaped work, and the examples are firmly of their period.
Also tagged
Where this sits in the operating system
Focus & Essentialism
Continuous Improvement & Feedback Loops
Focus & Essentialism
Key insights
Most elapsed time in any process is waiting, not working. Attack the queues before the tasks.
Compressing cycle time improves cost and quality together, which contradicts the assumption that they trade off.
Time is the one competitive dimension a rival cannot buy back quickly once lost.
Recognise it early
The failure and the correction sit side by side deliberately. Read the left column asking whether any of it is already true of you.
Sacrificing quality for speed creating rework and delays
Optimizing individual functions instead of total system speed
Adding complexity and variety that slows execution
Using long planning cycles with unreliable forecasts
Treating speed as tactical rather than strategic advantage
The same idea, argued differently
Greg McKeown
Geoffrey Moore
Frank Slootman
Gary Keller, Jay Papasan
The full breakdown
Before you close this
Naming the specific moment you will act roughly doubles the odds you do.
Reference
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