This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Back when I was Director of Industrial Engineering at Nabisco's Planters-Lifesavers Division, one of my duties was to deal with the wide range of stuff that my boss (the VP of Operations) kept throwing in my direction to research, review, or report back to him on. Recognizing that he was about as curious and inquisitive and attention challenged as myself, I quickly realized that not everything he passed along to me was really top priority. Rather than go back to him and ask "What don't you want me to do?," I often found myself using my judgment to simply prune my to-do list without action. I rationalized this with the theory that if really was important, he would bring it up again. I never really got burned by doing this, so I guess my judgment was good enough.
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