NBOP National Board of Operations Professionals

The free course · Volume I

Mind

Twelve Hundred Feet, and the Loops That Look Like Progress

You are not under-resourced. You are under-resolved.

Start with the diagnostic Or read from the beginning

15 lessons, free, no account and no email field. Each one teaches a single instrument: not an idea, a thing you can do this week and afterwards be able to tell whether it worked.

Take the Operator's Diagnostic first. It spans all eight domains, so it will tell you whether this is the volume you need. The lessons are answers, and answers are hard to hear before you have the question in your own words.

Before you start

What this is, what it is not, and the one sentence the rest of it hangs from.

  1. Start here What this course is, what it is not, and how to use it.
  2. Under-resolved You are not under-resourced. You are under-resolved. The sentence the whole course hangs from, and the law underneath it.

Part one. The Trail

Where you think you are, and how to find out where that is measured from.

  1. Twelve hundred feet Altitude is not detachment. It is the height at which the shape of the ground becomes visible.
  2. The destination, in one sentence If you cannot write it in one sentence, the problem is not the writing.
  3. Build backward from a stated destination Forward planning produces a list of good ideas. Backward planning produces a route.
  4. The causal line One sentence per workstream: how does this move the destination?

Part two. The Mill

Executing perfectly, at speed, inside a loop that goes nowhere and makes no noise.

  1. Motion, and progress The Mill: executing perfectly, at speed, inside a loop that goes nowhere.
  2. Why you cannot see a loop from inside it Every instrument you have was generated by the thing you are trying to measure.
  3. The tell is not failure. The tell is speed. The Einstellung effect: when a problem is solved unusually fast, by a method you already had.
  4. Count what is already in flight Not what is planned. What is running right now, with a name against it.

Part three. The Crossing

Getting out, which is an instrument problem and not an effort problem.

  1. The external reference A written standard from outside the system, that you can be wrong against.
  2. Gates, and what done means Nothing advances until it is done, and done has four named parts.
  3. Three doors React as normal, do the opposite, or do nothing. Consider all three, out loud, before choosing.

Part four. The Paper

Making it hold once other people are involved, and how to check a claim.

  1. What survives contact with other people Give the blank diagnostic to two colleagues, separately. Compare only after both are done.
  2. On method: how to check a claim The closing lesson of every volume. What the book refused to use, and why.

Common questions

Does this course cost anything?

No. All 15 lessons, the videos, the transcripts and the diagnostic are free. There is no account, and no email address is asked for until after the diagnostic has already shown you your reading.

Do I have to take it to sit the NBOP assessment?

No. It is not required, and it confers no advantage. The assessment is built from the published standard, not from this course, and the people who write the questions are not the people who wrote these lessons.

How long does it take?

About two hours to read all 15 lessons, and about ten minutes for the diagnostic. Most operators do not need all of them: the diagnostic points at the three or four that address what it found.

Who is it for?

People who already hold accountability for how work gets done. It assumes you run something. It is not an introduction to operations and it will not qualify anyone to enter the field.

What is the Operator’s Diagnostic?

A nine question instrument from Volume I. You rank the eight domains by how accountable you are for them, say what share of last month each one actually took, and name the external standard you would be judged against for each. The disagreements between those three columns are the findings. It is the front door to every course here, because it spans all eight domains rather than one endorsement worth of them.

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 practising 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.

Read the standard in full, free and in the open, before you pay anything or give anyone an address.