You are fixing the wrong problem
Every business has exactly one bottleneck. Use Goldratt’s Law to find yours and ignore everything else.
In any system, there is exactly one constraint that limits output (Goldratt’s Law).
If you improve anything other than the bottleneck, you are wasting money.
Most CEOs try to fix everything at once. That is “efficient,” but it is ineffective. You don’t need to do more. You need to find the one thing slowing you down and ruthlessly clear the path.
The Prompt
Act as an Operations Consultant (Theory of Constraints).
My high-level process is: [e.g., Lead Gen -> Sales Call -> Onboarding -> Delivery].
We feel the most pain/backlog at: [e.g., Onboarding].
1. The Test: Is this the actual bottleneck? (If we double capacity here, does revenue double, or does the pile-up just move to the next step?).
2. The Exploit: How do we maximise this bottleneck's output without spending a single dollar? (e.g., what admin tasks can we remove from these specific people today?).
3. The Subordination: What rules in other departments (e.g., Sales) must change to stop flooding this specific point?
The Executive Upgrade
The biggest enemy of speed is a department head hitting their goals while destroying company goals.
Example: Marketing hits their “Lead Quantity” goal by sending trash leads to Sales. Sales drowns. Marketing celebrates. The company loses.
The Fix: You must hunt down “Local Optima” and kill them.
Here are the two Governance Protocols to align the machine.
Follow-Up Prompt 1: The Incentive Audit
(Use this to check if your KPIs are fighting each other)
Act as a Systems Thinker.
Here are the KPIs for Department A: [e.g., Marketing - Volume of Leads].
Here are the KPIs for Department B: [e.g., Sales - Close Rate].
1. The Conflict: analysing how Department A optimising their metric actively hurts Department B.
2. The Behaviour: What "Game the System" behaviour does this create? (e.g., Sending unqualified leads just to hit the number).
3. The Fix: Propose a "Shared Metric" that forces them to cooperate.
Follow-Up Prompt 2: The “Buffer” Design
(Once you find the bottleneck, you must protect it)
Act as a Process Architect.
We identified our Bottleneck at: [Insert Step].
If this step stops working for even one hour, we lose revenue.
Design a "Buffer" to protect it.
1. The Shield: How do we ensure this team *never* runs out of work, but is *never* overwhelmed?
2. The Filter: What "Quality Check" must happen *before* work reaches this team to ensure they never work on defective inputs?
3. The Alarm: What is the early warning signal that the buffer is getting too full?