What does one actually do as a bottleneck management consultant?

Wolfram, with what problems do companies usually turn to you?

It’s always the same two problems that my customers complain about.

1. They have too little throughput or output – often visible in the form of too high costs.
2. The lead time or “time-to-market” is too long – also visible in the form of poor on-time delivery and quality problems.

My approach is to find and resolve bottlenecks in organizations. I do not see myself as a conventional consultant, but rather as a supporter who enables companies to become active themselves.

And how do you succeed in resolving bottlenecks?

To expose the mostly hidden bottleneck, I ask just one or two questions and provide some useful techniques. There are also empirical values where typical bottlenecks are hidden. However, companies have to come up with the insights themselves and identify the obstacles on their own. Then they develop a change plan themselves. The first step is often to briefly put a certain amount of ongoing projects on hold so that neither the bottleneck nor other resources are overloaded. Usually, ideas then bubble up all by themselves on how to make better use of the bottleneck.

What happens when the bottleneck is resolved?

The effect is stunning! Within a few days or weeks, the flow comes back – and people get this magical glow in their eyes when they are finally allowed to work meaningfully and stress-free again. Suddenly you manage two, three, five times as many tasks as before. Then, piece by piece, you tidy up and build a new control system. Success belongs to the employees and managers alone. I’m more of a sports coach in this process, running alongside and giving tips.

You originally studied mechatronics and mechanical engineering. Today you are a coach, author and speaker on bottleneck management. How did that come about?

I’ve experienced it myself, what it’s like to be thwarted by a bottleneck. I was almost desperate at the time. This experience sensitized me to the topic.

Back then, about 15 years ago, I was head of the Project Management Office at 1&1, WEB.DE and GMX. We hired 25 percent more employees every year. There were more and more people, but the number of projects we could handle just stayed the same. Something couldn’t be right. We discussed it every week in the boardroom and looked for solutions. Then I came up with the idea that from now on we would just work through one project at a time. And each new project would go to the back of the line.
For two weeks, I closely observed and took notes on where a project was hanging out. And then it suddenly became clear. With almost 1,500 employees, there was a bottleneck: four people through whose hands everything had to pass. We then supported these colleagues. From then on, everything suddenly flowed! Suddenly there was a sense of unity – a strong “we” feeling. Everyone tried to do everything so that the bottleneck could work optimally.

But you didn’t know the “Theory of Constraints” at that time?

No. I gave a talk about our problem and our solution at the PM Forum of the Society for Project Management (GPM). And afterwards someone came to me and told me that an Israeli physicist had exactly the same idea, but 30 years ago. His name was Eliyahu Goldratt. He is the founder of the Theory of Constraints, the theory of the bottleneck, on which my current work as a bottleneck whisperer is largely based.

Where can you apply these ideas?

Actually, everywhere where something flows – ideas, projects or products. There is always a bottleneck; and the more complex a situation is, the more clearly this bottleneck must act. It doesn’t matter whether you use classic project management or work agilely, build cars or IT systems, whether 10 people are involved or 6,000. The only thing that matters is that you want to see the whole picture.