High Output Management

What works better is to ask both the manufacturing and the sales departments to prepare a forecast, so that people are responsible for performing against their own predictions.

A manager should carry a raw material inventory in terms of projects. This is not to be confused with his work-in-process inventory, because that, like eggs in a continuous boiler, tends to spoil or become obsolete over time. Instead this inventory should consist of things you need to do but don’t need to finish right away—discretionary projects, t

Illustrated on this page is an ideal model of decision-making in a know-how business. The first stage should be free discussion, in which all points of view and all aspects of an issue are openly welcomed and debated. The greater the disagreement and controversy, the more important becomes the word free.

Leading indicators give you one way to look inside the black box by showing you in advance what the future might look like.

Process, assembly, and test operations can be readily applied to other very different kinds of productive work.

Given a choice, should you delegate activities that are familiar to you or those that aren’t? Before answering, consider the following principle: delegation without follow-through is abdication. You can never wash your hands of a task. Even after you delegate it, you are still responsible for its accomplishment, and monitoring the delegated task is

when you say “yes” to one thing you are inevitably saying “no” to another.

The supervisor’s effort at a staff meeting should go into keeping the discussion on track, with the subordinates bearing the brunt of working the issues.

All production flows have a basic characteristic: the material becomes more valuable as it moves through the process.