The speed of the bottleneck determines the speed of the system.

This holds true in almost any situation imaginable—whether it’s the slowest team-member, the weakest machine in a production line, or a specific clause in a contract. They will always slow everything down to their pace.

But

Looking for bottlenecks can also be useful when it’s not about optimsing production or getting teams up to speed.

When you’re deeply involved in something—whether it’s a new marketing strategy, developing a new product, or anything else—and you notice you’re starting to get tunnel vision, ask yourself:

Where’s the bottleneck hiding?

This will instantly help you see the situation from a new perspective.

Curious about a major bottleneck with an enormous impact that most of us wouldn’t even notice?

At Twitter

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he wanted to eliminate one of three ‘server farms’ to streamline operations. He asked the engineering team how long it would take. They estimated about six months. Musk gave them three weeks. When they said it couldn’t be done, he insisted. When they ultimately refused, he did it himself. In a day.

The bottleneck was caused by unchallenged assumptions, a lack of creativity and curiosity, and insufficient leadership.

Or what about the Dreamliner?

At Boeing

Often it’s not hardware that creates bottlenecks, but words and ideas. When Boeing was developing its Dreamliner, management decided to outsource parts-production. They had contracts drawn out for suppliers to abide. Business as usual, you could say (and so did the people at Boeing).

It eventually became clear that it was nearly impossible to adhere to these contracts.

The bottlenecks were caused by contracts that were overly rigid and burdened with excessive details, limiting flexibility and slowing down progress.

Btw

I’m old enough to still remember the significant quality issues that Opel and VW faced in the 1980s as a result of an extremely aggressive procurement strategy. Why am I thinking about that now?

Because greed is the most severe bottleneck of all.

That’s all,

RvdL