THE GOAL -- IT"S NOT LUCK -- STAND ALONE STORY: YES

1. Is it a stand-alone story? Yes.

FOLLOW-ON TO THE GOAL: ISSUES AND CHARACTERS

2. Is it a follow-on to The Goal? Yes, that's the structure. Protagonist plant manager, Alex Rogo, from The Goal is now an executive vice president, dealing with a very demanding -- and very capable -- corporate board of directors to decide things like to divest manufacturing divisions or not; to value divisions on basis of book value of assets vs. potential future profits or something else; whether and how to design an industrial conglomerate's corporate strategic planning system primarily on customers', or on employees', or on shareholders' interests; whether and how to focus on reductions of costs, or on increasing the number and nature and roles of a product line's perceived potential and attractive markets, or both. Alex is still back with his wife, Julie, and Julie has become, of all things, a marriage counselor. While in The Goal, the children provided portions of the common-sense factory management solutions, in It's Not Luck they have become adolescents, presenting more complicated matters for Alex and Julie to consider (using generic, non-throughput-dollar-oriented, TOC problem-solving methods, of course).

THE GOAL & IT'S NOT LUCK: READING SEQUENCE NOT CRITICAL

3. Though, in structure, INL is a follow-on to The Goal, I have observed, as DeVry Institute's Gordon Loucks also mentioned, reader satisfaction and enthusiasm whether It's Not Luck (INL) or Goal has been read first. This question of sequence seems not to be a high-stakes decision.

OTHER ASPECTS OF IT'S NOT LUCK

4. Direction of INL:

a. I guesss paragraph 2 above, while addressing the follow-on nature of INL, also described some of the book's direction. Here's more ...

SCOPE: CONGLOMERATE BOARDROOM VS. SINGLE FACTORY

b. While Goal's story takes place in the observations and thinking primarily of a single manufacturing operation's plant manager and supervisory team, It's Not Luck's (INL's) action is viewed primarily within the context of the challenges, perceptions, and thinking of a corporate executive vice president and the associated board of directors of a multi-business industrial organization.

TOC PHILOSOPHIES, PRINCIPLES, AND THINKING PROCESSES

b. Both books contain either explicit or implicit presentation or use of TOC philosophies and principles, e.g., system, goal, measurements,constraints, "verbalizing intuition" (meaning making intuition, or a rapidly-evolving individual and team "common sense," *explicit*) as the path to responding to complicated problems, via uncovering powerful intrinsic breakthrough solutions, solutions that have been there all the time just waiting to be found, found via use of thinking processes designed to find them, processes that home in quickly on fundamental problems and fundamental solutions because they're built upon the fact that -- regardless of how we choose temporarily to perceive them -- all aspects of any situation are connected to all other aspects of that same situation, processes designed to provide top managements with a very clear way to both communicate and accelerate what can and should be the self-fulfilling prophecy that everyman-already-is-and-of-right-ought-to-be-a-physicist-everyday [in the 90's, that's maybe everyPERSON-already-is-and-of-right-ought-to-be-a-physicist-everyday ... ?], this as opposed to an over-emphasis on conventional beliefs and so-called "best practices," this as opposed to a notion that physics should be the realm only of professional physicists, this as opposed to the notion that physics is applicable only to the "hard" sciences and not to "soft" things like performance management in industrial and other organizations. [Contest: Untangle THAT syntax and you'll receive the 1995 Internet James Joyce award for decrypting absolutely unbelievable on-line streams of consciousness ... ]

Fine, so far, for TOC philosophies and principles being in both books. It's a different story, however, for the detailed thinking processes which support the philosophies and principles, as we'll now explore.

TP ARE IN THE BACKGROUND IN _THE GOAL_ ;

THEY MOVE TO CENTER STAGE IN _IT'S NOT LUCK_

c. While, in The Goal, the TOC cause-effect diagnostic, planning, and implementation processes ("the TOC Thinking Processes") are at work in the background working in support of the TOC philosophies and principles, they move to center stage in It's Not Luck.

THE GOAL GOES AS FAR AS THE 5 FOCUSING STEPS

d. The Goal (in the 1992 2nd revised edition) takes the processes as far as the 5-step management focusing process that is perfect for physical constraints, but requires further leavening in order also to include (1) complicated arrays of physical and policy constraints and other circumstances that can exist within organizations, and (2) the larger classes of more general performance improvement and problem-solving situations (e.g., individual life situations which do not orient themselves naturally around considerations of cash flow or throughput-dollar measures.)

IT'S NOT LUCK: INTRODUCES DETAILED CAUSE-EFFECT

CHANGE MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINES AND DIAGRAMS

e. It's Not Luck moves forward from the 5 steps to introduce examples (with diagrams) of the current situation and conflict resolution thinking and diagramming disciplines.

f. There's a fairly simple future situation diagram in one section of the book. Most of the production and marketing solutions, which could easily lend themselves to rich examples of detailed future situation diagrams, along with extensive "negative branch" testing, are developed without accompanying cause-effect diagrams, most likely to keep the book at a reasonable length.

g. The 2 other primary tools, the pre-requisites and transitions planning portions of the thinking process (TP) toolset, are mentioned and described somewhat, but not pictured at all.

h. The book covers a lot of ground, delivers a lot of value ranging from principles to practices, and in the combined business/novel format that has been so popular around the world. It very provides a very friendly introduction to the nature, use, and value of the TOC thinking processes, but not all their details.

GOING BEYOND It's Not Luck's INTRODUCTION

TO THE TOC THINKING PROCESSES (TP)

i. For additional details on the thinking processes, APICS offers the audiotapes and proceedings of Constraints Management Symposium 1995, as indicated below (item #01514). Also, Bill Dettmer's book is very helpful (APICS doesn't yet carry this; haven't had time to get the two parties together on this yet; I'd like to see this book added to the APICS Constraints Management bookshelf.). Also, APICS does carry a book of TOC field studies, carried out by the Institute of Management Accounting, an appendix to which contains additional documentation on the thinking processes (APICS item #03356). Also, as indicated below, Dr. Goldratt will expand on It's Not Luck at CM Symposium 96, and he's conducting top management forums around the country on these matters throughout the remainder of 1995.

j. Bottom line on It's Not Luck and the TOC cause-effect diagnostic, planning, and implementation thinking processes: INL gives a Goal-like friendly introduction to them; other sources of additional detail exist currently; others are coming.

Thomas B. McMullen, Jr.

Chair, APICS CM SIG

E-Mail: TBMcM@aol.com