TOCICO

Handling uncertainty, especially within organizations, has to make a clear distinction between two different types of uncertainty. One is defined as a state where a real disaster is possible, but with very low probability.  The other faces 'common and expected uncertainty'.  The webinar describes the current common misunderstanding of the second type of uncertainty, in spite of its huge economic impact on every organization.  The concept of 'the reasonable range' and how it is connected to the TOC notion of a 'buffer' is presented. These concepts, coupled by some simple lessons from statistics, are translated into a decision-making process and it invokes even the POOGI (process of ongoing improvement) concept to further improve the way common and expected uncertainty is handled.  The webinar would demonstrate the generic solution in the known TOC methodologies for S-DBR, distribution and CCPM and might show further insights where different buffering schemes should be used. About this series: Being able to make good decisions is a requirement of any manager and leader.  In this series Eli Schragenheim (the other Eli) wishes to think aloud on how TOC guides us to be better decision makers.  The most interesting question to be dealt in the series is what 'hard decisions' are and how to make them 'not-too-hard decisions'?  There are two different categories of causes for the difficulty to arrive to a clear decision: complexity and uncertainty. Complexity is nicely handled by TOC through focusing and outlining the cause-and-effect relationships of the most critical elements.  In itself this is already a valuable addition to the work of Herbert Simon, another influential figure on management. Uncertainty is another element where TOC has provided certain solutions for some specific cases, but, yet, does not provide a generic way to systematically deal with uncertainty.