The Goal

With the aftermath of my transcribing job (after hundreds of pages later), I picked up a few things from it. One of the speakers on the tape, Jim Lindner, mentioned a book called "The Goal" by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt.

Lindner used the philosophy found in the book and incorporated it to his business and expertise which is digital film archiving.

I was so enamored by it that I couldn't help myself, I had to read it. So I looked for an e-book (shame on me!) and started reading. But Dr. Goldratt, if you happen to read this, I'm going to buy a copy of your book this weekend! So don't fret! Haha!

"The Goal" is written as a fictional novel. It's about a metal factory plant manager who is always behind schedule. His factory is in shambles as he can't keep up with the deadlines and the quota number of productions. With this dilemma, one of his friends approached him and taught him the "Theory of Constraints", which eventually helped him solve his managerial problems. It enabled him to find out what the problem is (why his factory doesn't reach the deadline and quota of metals), and eventually do something to fix it.

Now why did it caught my attention? You're telling yourself, "Asus, si Fil nagbabasa ng ganito! Asa!!!" Haha!

It caught my attention because I can adapt it to my own problem: Thesis.

I'll break it down.

"The Goal" features the "Theory of Constraints". In a nutshell, it's a theory of identifying what the problem is, and making a remedy for it. It consists of 5 steps (if you follow the link, you'll see it). And out of the five steps, number two is the most important. Number two is about identifying the constraints and exploiting it, and learning how to control or measure them to be able to go to number 3...

Let me sink in further. In the book, Dr. Goldratt introduced the term "bottlenecks". Bottlenecks refer to the constraints--the factors that disables your work from getting done.

In Lindner's case (digital archiving), the bottlenecks were: "only few available equipments", "he has only a few men to do the work", "lack of materials", "lack of resources", and so on. These 'bottlenecks' are what's keeping him from finishing the digital archiving process efficiently and on time.

And digital archiving is a series method, meaning you have to do step one before you can move to step 2, and so on. First, the selection process--he needs to watch movies to decide which ones he's going to digitize. Then after the selection, he proceeds to digitizing the actual tape.

But how can he even proceed to the digitizing process when he can't get through the selection process? Because in the selection process, he has bottlenecks such as "lack of movie players", "the tape is missing", "the audiovisual archivist is on leave", etc.

Lindner said it best: No matter how fast most of the system is, if ONE part is SLOW, its gonna affect the whole.

Take for example, a narrow road and you are driving a sports car. No matter how fast your car is, you're never gonna get past that slow 10-wheeler truck in front of you because of the narrow road. No way.

Now, apply it on my case... the thesis.

Thesis is a SERIES method. You are stupid if you think its not. Look at it this way:

1. You have to create a proposal.
2. Have that proposal approved by the thesis adviser.
3. Begin writing the documentation.
4. Have the documentation approved by the thesis adviser.
5. Start creating the program.
6. FINISH the program.
7. Defend the program against the panel, and pass.
8. GRADUATE!!!

You can't do step 3 right off the bat without having the proposal approved (step2), right?! What's the point of writing a document about something that wasn't even approved by the adviser in the first place!

And surely, you CAN'T defend a program if it isn't finished yet! And you can't fucking graduate without finishing the THESIS!!! Right!?

So even if you do steps 1-5 in six months, BUT step 6 took TWO FUCKING YEARS to complete...

Well, you get my point?!

Step 6 is the goddamn 'bottleneck' in my case. (hey, I really love saying that word.. 'bottleneck!' 'bottleneck!' 'bottleneck!'... hahaha!)

Step 6 is the road block. Step 6 is the freaking 10-wheeler truck in front of my sports car.

And thinking about it in a way, I'm a part of the bottleneck. Why? Because I've waited a long time before I did something about the dilemma. That's irresponsibility on my part. Alam ko na kung anong ugali ng mga kagrupo ko, pero wala akong immediate na ginawa para gawan ng solution.

So yeah, you can say that I'm part of the bottleneck. If only because of my being irresponsible enough to put up with much, much irresponsible persons.

My only consolation about it is that I've already done something about it... and hurray, I'm almost on the finish line. :)

So that's "The Goal" on my perspective. What did I do with the bottlenecks? Tsaka na... Tsaka ko na sasabihin after everything is said and done. :)

Anywho, that's it for now. I highly recommend "The Goal" by Dr. Goldratt. It is a good read! It's like one of those philosophy bibles that anyone who reads it can relate it to their own problems.

++Wow, considering that I've read 'The Goal'. Last book I've read was Anne Rice's Memnoch The Devil, and Merrick. After all my problems are over, I'll start reading the Twilight series. I heard its good. And its a vampire novel. ;p