In this week’s pod, we welcomed Dr Alan Barnard to discuss the theory of constraints & decision-making.

Dr. Alan Barnard is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, strategy advisor, research scientist, app developer, author, coach, lecturer, podcaster, and lifelong learner. Alan is considered one of the world’s leading Decision Scientists and Theory of Constraints experts. Alan is the CEO of Goldratt Research Labs, which he co-founded in 2009 with Dr. Eli Goldratt, author of THE GOAL, creator of Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain Project Management.

Dr. Alan’s research focuses on understanding why good people make, and often repeat bad decisions, and how best to avoid these. From this research, Alan and his team at Goldratt Research Labs have developed a range of award-winning Decision Support Apps that help organizations and individuals make better faster decisions when it really matters.

Their clients include Fortune 500 companies, Government Agencies, and people from over 70 countries that are using their apps to make difficult life and business decisions.

 The main topics we discussed on the podcast were as follows:

• There is a massive amount of invisible simplicity on major projects
• How do you decide on a goal if you do not know what resources will limit you reaching that goal?
• Many people become successful due to factors outside their control such as luck and good genes, however almost all successful people make good decision and are hard working, which is in their control
• To create a stable system, have a single constraint that doesn’t move
• Projects are always looking for the inherent but invisible simplicity. Critical path methodology  enabled projects to simplify how they represent project delivery, however this usually ignores resource and capacity constraints
• Many people are better at estimating work durations in big chunks rather than at a lower level / individual task based detail
• Hard to quantify capacity, availability and capability of resources in a project plan. The easiest thing to track is whether a project is waiting for resource
• The main planning mistake is to ignore capacity when making commitments and launch too many projects at the same time
• AI is better suited to production environments where there is repetitive information
• A key skill of a manager is the ability to keep the team “in flow”

Here are links to some of the topics we discussed:

• Flow Theory: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/flow-theory
• Impossible Unless: https://www.impossibleunless.com/special-copy-registration
• Project Portfolio Digital Twin: https://www.projectdigitaltwin.com/sale1648625245366
• Goldratt Research Labs: www.goldrattresearchlabs.com
• Harmony Apps: https://harmonyapps.com/
• Dr Alan Barnard Website: www.dralanbarnard.com
• Critical Chain – Eliyahu Goldratt:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Chain-Business-Eliyahu-Goldratt/dp/0566080389
• How to Improve Work Flow in any Environment – keynote by Dr. Alan Barnard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AkrjO55VBQ&feature=youtu.be

Join us next week when we speak to Paul Waskett to discuss Project Controls in design and engineering stages

For more information, blogs or to support our charities visit www.projectchatterpodcast.com

If you’d like to sponsor the podcast get in touch via our website.

You can also leave us a voice message via our anchor page and let us know if there’s something or someone specific that you would like on the podcast.

Proudly sponsored by:
 JustDo – https://www.justdo.com/
 InEight – https://ineight.com/