Ventana software support forum

Hi John

I do not agree with your opinions about processes and goals.

First point.

The reason of Toyotas strategy is not automatically the result of the
philosophical question: to what extent fixing goals can change the results
of a process?

If Toyotas president did not mind his shares market it was probably
because the capacity of his factories was correctly used. He then did not
see the usefulness of selling more which would generate a decrease of
prices. On the contrary if his factories were underused he would certainly
be more concerned with selling more. Then the Toyotas problem is a simple
economical optimization problem that can be solved with SD, O.R., a
spreadsheet or with a pencil and a sheet of paper.

Second point:

Gurus theories are always partially grounded on reality. In this case the
reality is that most goals are not reached. Then the solution is to suppress
goals and to work on processes.

This is of course a very tempting theory. No more goals to set, everything
comes automatically.

The difficulty to reach the goals can have another reason. The goals are
badly set and the means to accomplish them are not well adjusted.

I do not mean that process is not important but its influence can vary
considerably.

Many people set goals, focusing on results instead on focusing on the causes
that determine the results and then experience difficulties reaching their
goals. In fact one must when setting goals take into consideration the
process. If the process is well build then the goals will be easier to
settle.

Example:

If a new salesman is hired and you settle with him sales objectives on a
month by month basis, he may have genuine difficulties, depending on the
kind of product, to see the link between his efforts and his sales results.
It can affect his motivation.

If you set objectives on which he has more control, for instance the
quantity of contacts, the quality of reports, etc. that will, if carefully
chosen, influence his future results, you will know that if the objectives
are not reached it is because the salesman did not work correctly.

There is too a saying that says that there is no good wind for a journey
without destination.

Third point: It is an important advantage of SD to be independent from any
simplifying theory. That means that depending on the situation, the outcome
of a SD model may be eventually contradictory with any Gurus theory.

J.J. Laublé Allocar, rent a car companies.
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