Bottlenecks In Your Church Systems?

The term Theory of Constraints (or TOC) is used to describe a management science based on the hard sciences, i.e., rigorous cause-and-effect.  TOC views organizations as systems, made up of different parts, resources and processes that must work interdependently to achieve a common goal.  Any organization not achieving infinite performance has a constraint, or sometimes called a bottleneck.  Knowing where an organizations bottleneck is enables focused improvements to maximize the overall performance.

Some people ask what the difference is between Lean and TOC’s.  Although both are process improvement techniques, there are some significant differences between the two approaches.  These differences are summarized in the following table.

Every system has a bottleneck… a constraint that holds it back from delivering more (throughput) than it currently is capable of .  Our church systems (assimilation, evangelical, weekend service, small groups, ministry, stewardship, leadership, and strategic) all have bottlenecks.  If a system had no constraints, it would have infinite capacity.  And in reality we all know that our church systems do not have infinite capacity.  Here are 5 steps to identifying and overcoming the current bottlenecks in your church.

5 Focusing Steps of Theory of Constraints

1.  
   1. Identify the system’s constraint.  What is limiting our ability to generate more throughput?
   2. Decide how to exploit it.  What do we want the constraint to do and how do we maximize it?
   3. Subordinate/synchronize everything else to the above decisions.  Set work rules and protect the constraint.
   4. Elevate the system’s constraint.  Increase constraint capacity and ensure there is sufficient protective capacity surrounding it.
   5. If in the above steps the constraint has shifted, go back to Step 1.  Don’t allow inertia to become the system’s constraint.  Make it an ongoing improvement process.

One of the coolest little demonstrations of Theory of Constraints I have ever seen is at this link:  http://www.tocca.com.au/services/demoOperations.htm.   It’s a simple yet effective example of how to apply the 5 focusing steps of TOC’s to a business process.

Watch for a series of articles to be published on this topic.