TOC Thinkers

Rob Newbold

One day I hope I can buy Rob Newbold a nice cold beer or a nice hot coffee.  We've just spent a very pleasant hour chatting about his chapter in the TOC handbook (on making change stick), the latest innovations in prochain, and life+TOC in general.  It'd be nice to do it in person one day.

You can listen here: http://clarkeching.libsyn.org/index.php?post_id=632663

Here's a link to the Kindle version of his chapter (which you can read on your PC, Iphone or Mac too): http://www.amazon.com/Making-Chapter-Constraints-Handbook-ebook/dp/B003VQQFYK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=A7B2F8DUJ88VZ&s=books&qid=1279741807&sr=1-2

Q5. Rob Newbold

Q5 What will the reader be able to achieve after reading the book?

The reader should stand a much better chance of helping their organization
to change the behaviors that need to change in order to get real
improvements, whatever their role might be. If they're already in the midst
of an implementation, they should gain a good idea of what holes they might
need to patch. And if they've "finished" an implementation, it should help
them to reassess where they are compared with where they could be. Note
that I didn't say what kind of implementation we're talking about. It could
be critical chain scheduling and it could be ProChain Project Management,
but I think many parts of the book are applicable to other kinds of change
efforts as well.

The reassessment issue is interesting. One thing I've found is that, as
people work towards rapid benefits using TOC, they often leave off
important change management elements. That can eventually cause an
implementation to stagnate or decline. This is touched on a couple of
places in the book (e.g. p. 140), but I'm thinking it may be a good topic
for a blog entry or two (see http://billiondollarsolution.com/blog/).

Q4. Rob Newbold

Q4. What part of The Billion Dollar Solution are you most excited about?

 I'd mention two things. First is the Cycle of Results (CORE, with a tm after it!) described in chapter 15. For me, it's a big advance in change management for practical implementations, but I'm still not sure how best to convey why that is. People read about it and say, "ok, that makes sense, but so what?" The so what is, you can evaluate just about any implementation plan using CORE and very quickly determine its strengths and weaknesses. By correcting the weaknesses you can dramatically increase your chances of long-term success. And we're not just talking about implementing ProChain Project Management; I think it's going to prove helpful for implementing ERP or getting your kids to clean their rooms. It's only one chapter of the book, so I'm sure we'll be doing more writing on the subject.

Second is the launching of ProChain Press. There are lots of publishing alternatives these days, including going with a well-known publisher or using print-on-demand. I wanted more control than a publisher would allow and better quality than I've seen from print-on-demand. We were able to do two-color printing, add a nice cover, sell it for less than half the price of my previous book, and time the release with the associated web site, billiondollarsolution.com. And (ironically) we didn't have to wait a year between the time it was written and the time it was on the shelves! I do have to admit, I now have a much better understanding of why manuscripts take a long time to get into print. I'm not sure where we'll go next with ProChain Press. As you know, I do have another book waiting in the wings, so no doubt that will be a project one of these days. Stay tuned!

Q3. Rob Newbold

Q3.  What's happened in between?

We started by selling critical chain software that ran on top of Microsoft Project, along with training. Early on we worked with a lot of consultants, especially Goldratt associates. They would sell the implementation and the company would buy our software and bring us in to do the software training. The good news was, it was a great way to learn what worked and what didn't. I much prefer learning from other people's mistakes. The bad news was that we saw the same mistakes being made over and over, often by the same people. You may think it's hard to get people who work for you to change, but believe me, it's almost impossible to get consultants to change when they bring you in. By early 1998 we knew that we had to go into the implementation business ourselves. That was a big decision, because it meant that we were in direct competition with many of our software distributors. Most of those relationships went away, not always without pain, and since then we've done our own sales and distribution, with the help of Alan Cohen in the U.K.

 

Few remember that our original name was "Creative Technology Labs." It wasn't a very inspired name, and also we kept getting calls from people who had problems with their Soundblaster cards because Soundblaster was made by Creative Labs. So we changed to ProChain Solutions in 1999.

 

Over the last 10 years we've developed and fine-tuned our methodology, "ProChain Project Management," the subject of The Billion Dollar Solution. We're working on version 10 of the ProChain software, which includes ProChain Project Scheduling for single projects; ProChain Pipeline for multiple projects; and ProChain Enterprise for web-based scheduling, updating, reporting, and analysis. We've also done successful implementations with a number of very large companies.

 

We've tried to stay tapped into what's going on with the TOC world, but we've had little contact with Goldratt or his organizations for years. I think that has worked in our favor, because in the TOC world there are too many things that people feel a need to do "because Eli said so."

Q2. Rob Newbold

Q2.  Let's step back a decade or so.  Tell me about your first book and why your wrote it.  Can you tell us about the early days of Prochain?

I started working on Project Management in the Fast Lane just after leaving Bob Fox's organization, The TOC Center, in 1996. At that time I wanted to build a business around critical chain concepts and software, so working on the book forced me to think through the ramifications even as I developed the initial version of the ProChain software. It also gave us some credibility as ProChain moved ahead, and helped promote more discussion and awareness of critical chain concepts. I don't think the mechanics of critical chain scheduling have changed much since then. What's really changed is our level of awareness regarding what's most important and how it all fits together. People in the TOC community (yes, including sometimes ProChain) have spent too much time obsessing about unimportant technical details and not enough time figuring out how to make implementations work over the long haul.

In late 1996, in order to fit with the release of his book "Critical Chain," Eli Goldratt convened a group of people whom he hoped would develop software to support the concepts described in the book. The group included a number of companies, including myself, Primavera, Baan, ThruPut Technologies, the Goldratt Institute, and Synergy, a company based in Washington, D.C.
Bill Lynch was the main Synergy representative, and I had known him for a number of years through his work on Lean Logistics in the U.S. Air Force. We decided we could do better by teaming up, which is what we did in 1997.

Q1. Rob Newbold - The Billion Dollar Solution

Rob Newbold is one of the great TOC Thinkers.  He is author of the new book 'The Billion Dollar Solution' and CEO of ProChain Solutions, Inc

Q1.  I'm about a third of the way through your new book right now.  I love what I've read so far.  You seem to have shifted your focus up a couple of  level in the organization compared to your fist book - spending less time on  individual projects. more time on the whole organization. Can you tell us more about the book - who is it written for and what will they get out of  it?

Thanks. You're exactly correct, it is written from a broader perspective. Let me start with a story that's the real genesis of the book. Some years ago, one of our senior consultants and I were interviewing a senior executive at a large corporation. This guy was directly responsible for a multi-billion dollar revenue stream, with some projects that were worth millions of dollars for each day they reached the market earlier. My colleague asked him, "What is your experience with critical chain?" He responded, "I've read Project Management in the Fast Lane." Then he turned to me and asked, "Have you read it?" He was embarrassed to find out I had written it, but also very complimentary. I was surprised, because I had assumed the book would be read by people at the project manager level. I thought, if someone at that level is taking the time to read such a book, they deserve something that more directly addresses their concerns and their roles.

So to answer your question, The Billion Dollar Solution shows holistically what we do to implement "ProChain Project Management," our methdology that incorporates critical chain scheduling. It is intended first of all for senior managers. They may want to skip part 2, which describes the tools; but because the book describes the tools and how the pieces fit together, I think it will be useful for project managers and functional managers on up. And -- who knows -- maybe the ambitious individual contributors?