Concept
The thinking processes in Eliyahu M. Goldratt's theory of constraints are the five methods to enable the focused improvement of any cognitive system (especially business systems). The purpose of the thinking processes is to help answer questions essential to achieving focused improvement: What to change? What to change it into? How to cause the change? Sometimes two other questions are considered as well: Why change? and: How to maintain the process of ongoing improvement (POOGI)? A more thorough rationale is presented in What is this thing called theory of constraints and how should it be implemented. A more thorough work, mapping the use and evolution of the Thinking Processes, was conducted by Mabin et al. The primary thinking processes, as codified by Goldratt and others: Current reality tree (CRT, similar to the current state map used by many organizations) — evaluates the network of cause-effect relations between the undesirable effects (UDE's, also known as gap elements) and helps to pinpoint the root cause(s) of most of the undesirable effects. Evaporating Cloud (conflict resolution diagram or CRD) - solves conflicts that usually perpetuate the causes for an undesirable situation. Core Conflict Cloud (CCC) - A combination of conflict clouds based on several UDE's. Looking for deeper conflicts that create the undesirable effects. Future Reality Tree (FRT, similar to a future state map) - Once some actions (injections) are chosen (not necessarily detailed) to solve the root cause(s) uncovered in the CRT and to resolve the conflict in the CRD the FRT shows the future states of the system and helps to identify possible negative outcomes of the changes (Negative Branches) and to prune them before implementing the changes. Negative Branch Reservations (NBR) - Identify potential negative ramifications of any action (such as an injection, or a half-baked idea). The goal of the NBR is to understand the causal path between the action and negative ramifications so that the negative effect can be "trimmed.