NBOP National Board of Operations Professionals

Part four. The OperationLesson 13 of 16

Three at the top, one at the edge

Concentrate effort where volume is, and experiment where you are least certain.

The instrument The capacity rule

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A simple allocation rule that survives contact with reality better than most. For every three units of effort spent on the channels carrying your volume, spend one at the edge of what you understand. The three exist because the channels already working are where marginal improvement compounds, and because operations chronically under invest in maintaining what works in favor of the next new thing. The one exists because every channel decays, and the moment you need a new one is the worst possible moment to begin learning it. The ratio matters less than the discipline of protecting the smaller number. Under pressure it is always the experiment that gets canceled, which is precisely backwards. The experiment is the insurance. Give the edge work a stated question and a date rather than an outcome target.

A simple allocation rule that survives contact with reality better than most: for every three units of effort spent on the channels carrying your volume, spend one at the edge of what you understand.

The three exist because the channels already working are where marginal improvement compounds, and because operations chronically under-invest in maintaining what works in favor of the next new thing.

The one exists because every channel decays, and the moment you need a new one is the worst possible moment to begin learning it. An operation that discovers its main channel has stopped working, and has no second channel it understands, is in trouble that no budget fixes quickly.

The ratio matters less than the discipline of protecting the smaller number. Under pressure it is always the experiment that gets canceled, which is precisely backwards: the experiment is the insurance.

Two rules make it hold. The edge work gets a stated question and a date rather than an outcome target, because an experiment judged on return is not an experiment. And it does not get canceled to fund the three, because the whole point is that it is protected from the pressure that would consume it.

Two things worth doing, neither of which costs anything

One Help decide what a competent operator is expected to know The eight domains carry equal provisional weighting until practicing operators say what the work actually is. Takes about eight minutes. Two Check whether you are eligible About a minute. No account, no email field, and nothing you enter is kept.

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