“There is no doubt that this is a truly original and groundbreaking work in applying the Theory of Constraints. I run a services company and learned some things about the services business. Anyone involved in large services companies needs to look at what John is proposing. I will definitely quote this material frequently.”
ChadSmith, Managing Partner, Constraints Management Group
“The information presented in this book is badly needed by service providers who struggle to balance supply and demand with their resources.”
Carol A. Ptak, CFPIM, CIRM
“The techniques that John brings to light in this book are the bridge from the vision of Dr. Goldratt's work to the successful implementation in a range of services firms.”
From the Foreword by Erik Bush, Vice President, IBM Global Services
- Discover the powerful Theory of Constraints (TOC), and use it to drive continuous performance improvement in any services organization
- Identify the hidden constraints that are limiting your organization, and manage or eliminate them
- Use TOC to improve the way you manage resources, projects, processes, finance, marketing, and sales
- Determine whether your organization faces an internal or external constraint, manage that constraint accordingly, and anticipate where the next constraint will arise
- Release latent capacity shrouded by common business practices
- Simplify processes that have grown unmanageably complex
- Optimize your enterprise as a whole rather than suboptimizing individual business units
- Get buy-in to fundamental changes in strategy, tactics, and operations
Managing services is extremely challenging, and traditional “industrial” management techniques are no longer adequate. In Reaching the Goal, Dr. John Arthur Ricketts presents a breakthrough management approach that embraces what makes services different: their diversity, complexity, and unique distribution methods.
Ricketts draws on Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC), one of this generation's most successful management methodologies...thoroughly adapting it to the needs of today's professional, scientific, and technical services businesses. He reveals how to identify the surprising constraints that limit your organization's performance, execute more effectively within those constraints, and then loosen or even eliminate them.
This book's relentlessly practical techniques reflect several years of advanced IBM research and consulting with enterprise clients. Step-by-step, Ricketts shows how to apply them throughout your most crucial business functions...from project management to finance, process improvement to sales and marketing.
Whatever your role in improving service delivery, processes, or profitability, this book gives you the tools to reach your goals...and go beyond them
- Identify, manage, and overcome your key constraints
Five steps to uncovering and addressing the real obstacles to improved performance
- Optimize core business functions, one step at a time
Improve the way you manage resources, projects, processes, finance, and marketing
- Implement TOC rapidly and effectively
Get buy-in, deploy infrastructure, and provide the right IT support?
Terry Mohan was a communication consultant and a former Associate Professor of Communication at The University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). There he contributed to the development of undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in Communication, especially in writing, literary studies and mass communication, and headed the program of communication studies across most of the faculties in the university. At UTS he pioneered the development and teaching of a number of curricula in communication studies and skills geared to the needs of students from a range of faculties including business, science, engineering and computer science. He also conducted staff development seminars for a number of organisations and government departments.
Ray Archee is an academic at the University of Western Sydney and has taught professional writing, research methods and communication subjects for over 20 years. Ray has been a school teacher and claims to have written the first Internet column in any Australian computer magazine (Your PC), and has consulted to business in technology-related areas. He has a PhD (Charles Sturt University) in computer-mediated communication, an MA in Psychology and a Graduate Diploma in Adult Education. He plays and builds jazz, acoustic and Flamenco guitars. His current research interests include mediated communication, intercultural communication and innovative approaches to e-learning. Ray was one of the original co-authors of Communicating! Theory and Practice (1997), and the first and second editions of Communicating as Professionals.
Myra Gurney has taught in the tertiary education sector for over 20 years and is currently a lecturer in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney where she teaches units in professional communication theory and practice, professional and academic writing skills and communication research. She has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Australian History and a Diploma in Education from the University of Sydney an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies from UWS and a Diploma in Book Editing and Publishing from Macleay College. She is currently completing a PhD at UWS in which she is examining the discursive characteristics of the climate change debate in Australia.
Myra and Ray have collaborated for several years on a variety of grants, courses and projects related to e-learning and have won awards for their course and curriculum design, including a 2011 Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for outstanding contribution to student learning.
