Agility in a regulated environment:

Do the Balancing Act - Combine Agility with Reliability

Agility is a trend. But in regulated environments, trends matter less than reliability and full transparency – standard agile
methods fail to do the necessary balancing act.

→ For you, the Dolphin balancing act means greater reliability PLUS agility with full transparency PLUS higher
throughput and speed.
→ Our ingredients for your winning formula: Proven constraint management (Theory of Constraints) combined with
agile methods, or: an amazing balancing act! Become a high-performance organization in minimal time.

Constraint management (Theory of Constraints according to E. Goldratt) and self-organization (Synergetics

according to Haken/Schiepek) are the foundation of the DolphinApproach toward more agility in a short time.
Constraint management has been used successfully in various project situations for over 30 years and achieves flow
rate increases of +50% to +300% while keeping the costs constant. As the second building block, self-organization in
the sense of synergetic is the key to a rapid change process.

www.Change-Base.com
Agility and reliability in harmony – how does the balancing act
work?
It’s simple - make project management agile AND make agile methods the DolphinUniverse
reliable. “We are here to bring the sparkling back into
the eyes of the people - to grow beyond
For this, we enhance the existing multi-project management with ourselves without pressure and to achieve
constraint and buffer management from the Theory of Constraints great things together!”
(TOC), aka Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). Agility finds its
place on team and work-package level and benefits from clear
priorities in the project world.

This enables us to offer you an optimal, fast workflow with full

transparency at the same time.

The scientific basis of the DolphinApproach is the methodical The DolphinUniverse is an international
constraint management of the Theory of Constraints. Formulated network of senior consultants. We call
about 30 years ago by the Israeli physicist Eliyahu M. Goldratt, the ourselves “Dolphins” – very intelligent and
methods and concepts are now used successfully worldwide – no agile animals. Dolphins learned to work
matter for which industry or company size. together and support each other in hunting
very effectively.

What exactly does that mean?

Finding and optimizing the single “narrowest” constraint
Every project organization has exactly one system-defining constraint.

Figuratively speaking, it can be compared to a constraint on the motorway: If several lanes suddenly merge into one,
there is an acute risk of congestion. But if only as many vehicles continuously reach the constraint as it can handle,
traffic will flow.

For the ideal project performance, this means discovering the constraint at the company and using it to align the
project starts so that work will always flow smoothly.

Our Contribution:
Finding the constraint → aligning the project flow
with the constraint → eliminating negative
multitasking or congestions

Your Result:
Optimal throughput, speed and reliability in terms
of quality and time

This is the enabler and precondition for self-organization and self-organized change. If you want to make your manager
and employees responsible for the results, you must ensure they are never overloaded – NO EXCUSES!

Then you just need a signal for operational priority, and the magic happens!

www.Change-Base.com
Fever curves as real-time indicators of critical projects
Fever curves (from CCPM) show the progress and buffer consumption for each project daily. Your advantage: You can
see immediately which project requires resources and attention. The teams will do everything to stay in yellow.

Progress (x-axis) and buffer consumption (y-axis) are measured daily and
objectively – the team is trying to stay in the middle zone
[ Example: Wire Swiss App of co-founder of Skype – Janus Friis ]

You now have fever curves for all your initiatives – agile, classic, or mixed. The operational priority is clear and
transparent for everyone. The initiative with the highest buffer consumption compared to the progress is the most
critical one and needs all support possible. Pursuing clear operational priorities and avoiding negative multitasking
becomes easygoing.

a full overview of the whole portfolio – give operational priority

[ Example: Otto Fuchs, automotive and avionic supplier, portfolio three weeks after
go!live ]
Where is the agility?
The Dolphins have developed a process that makes agile procedures compatible with projects. An agile delivery
(release) corresponds to a work package in the project. The scope of the delivery is adjusted to be demanding but
realistic – the buffer becomes explicit. This process enables agility without losing sight of the clear goal. This makes it
possible to control agile teams and projects with the same fever curve – incl. the use of all agile methods and benefits.

This also enables a seamless integration into traditional projects. Project controlling for agile teams is identical to
traditional project controlling (according to CCPM).

The beauty of it all?

Combining a reliable, learned project approach and all the advantages of agile methods.

Our Contribution:
Winning middle management → Enabling project management to create easily controllable
plans with transparent buffers → Conveying to the team that daily feedback is fun and
makes sense

Your Result:
focused and effective work, full overview for middle and top management, comprehensive
transparency for you – in real time!

www.Change-Base.com
Results – that’s all-what matters
According to our experience from implementations in companies of all industries and sizes: Agility and reliability
(quality, time, budget) improve AND the project throughput increases!

Quotes from our Customers

◼ “The crystal-clear, hourly overview of all (!) ongoing projects at the task level is absolutely
amazing.”
◼ “Systematic weak points get very transparent and can then be addressed appropriately.”
◼ “Finally, I can work effectively again.”
◼ “Each team member now works much more closely on the most important tasks in the
project.”
 Our Contribution:
No, we can’t perform magic! Our customers always say: “What you’re doing is actually just
common sense.”
But sometimes you need an outside person to recognize this, along with the experience to
get all the involved parties on board.

Do you want to get started?

This is what the first steps in the DolphinUniverse look like:

1 It starts with a benchmark against the study “Status Quo Multitasking in Project Management” (650 companies).
The result provides a reliable statement about the symptoms (problems) at your company. You will also get an
assessment of the potential that could be leveraged by implementing a TOC solution.

2 In the second step, we activate middle management for the solution. In a two-three-day Challenging Workshop,
selected employees and managers will test (“challenge”) the approach in detail. The result is a first draft of the change
plan as well as a well-founded buy-in for a goal-oriented, fast approach in middle management.

Thanks to the special workshop design, we achieved approval rates of over 90 % in the entire team – all the time. This
makes change easy!

Your first step into an agile, high-performance

organization in the DolphinUniverse

Mail to: [email protected] or

book an expert call: bit.ly/TalkWithTheDolphin.

The DolphinUniverse Jump-Start-Shop (all for free) also has

numerous surprises, tools, and information for you:
https://bit.ly/DolphinJumpStart

www.Change-Base.com
Your Contact Person
Wolfram Müller
Our expert in self-organized changes and bottleneck management. Over
40 companies, from start-ups and medium-sized companies to
corporations with 6,500 employees in all industries have benefited from
his knowledge and methods so far - whether in the automotive sector,
finance, IT or pharmaceuticals. Companies such as Festo,
Endress+Hauser, Megger, Otto Fuchs and Bosch swear by his expertise.

The results are always similar: +50% or more projects with the same
resources as well as a minimum of -25% reduction in project durations
within a few weeks.

+49 171 565 1821 // [email protected]