Managing People

“High Output Management” by the late Andrew Grove, ex-Chairman and CEO of Intel, is a must-read management book.

First published back in 1983, the book applies production principles to management. All (product) managers can benefit from the principles discussed below and make it a part of their day-to-day working practices.

The “limiting step” is the step in the overall shape of the production flow that will determine the overall shape of a company’s operations. 

For example, the time required to boil an egg is the critical component or the ‘limiting step’ in the production flow of serving breakfast. 

The key idea here is to construct your production flow by starting with the longest (or most difficult, or most sensitive, or most expensive) step and work our way back. 

If there’s a problem with your product, you want to find out about it as early on in the production process as possible so that you can minimise the risk. 

In the production world, I witnessed the lowest-value stage thinking first hand at the assembly line of a Toyota factory. Here, employees can pull the “Andon” cord to (temporarily) bring things to a halt as soon as they come across an issue. It’s an easy way of escalating things, making sure that a problem or bottleneck is dealt with before proceeding with the rest of the assembly process.