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Announcing our latest and biggest upgrade to HARMONY, packed with exciting new features and even a new stand-alone version to make HARMONY even better, simpler, faster and easier to use…
We are especially proud to announce:
The new HARMONY DecisionMaker gives users direct access to the five steps of the Change Matrix Cloud Process. Each step was designed to help overcome one of the five most common mistakes when making decisions or trying to learn from experience. We have created two YouTube explanation videos to share with you how the Change Matrix Cloud process evolved to keep the benefits while addressing the limitations of Benjamin Franklin’s Pro/Con List and Dr. Eli Goldratt’s Change Matrix and Evaporating Cloud methods.
The Odyssey program is a learning experience that makes use of the Harmony Decision Maker, enabling attendees to identify any problem or expectation gap - in an area of their life or organization - that really bothers them. Harmony Decision Maker takes them through a step-by-step process for evaluating whether or not the problem is important enough to work on; understand the decisions and underlying assumptions that could be holding them back to resolve the decision; evaluate various options that can provide a win-win solution; and how to create a detailed plan to implement and test this new solution in their organization or life.
NEW! Print your S&T Trees and Decisions directly to MS Word
This new functionality allows users to now export S&T Trees and Decisions they created in HARMONY as MS Word documents. This provides even more options for sharing, publication, edits, and accessibility. You can access it by simply clicking on the PRINT icon in HARMONY. Alternatively, next to each record in your library, you will now see additional links for EXPORT. Simply select the record and click the link to export. The result is professional & easy to read documentation in a universally accessible format. Now it’s easier than ever to include S&T or Decision content into business plans, proposals, and other important communication documents for your organization.
New! Now use HARMONY to merge 3 Decisions into a Core Decision
In Theory of Constraints we use the “3-Cloud” approach to find the Core Decision related to specific performance or expectation gap related decisions in different parts of the system. In Harmony’s S&T Audit module, users can not only define and resolve specific GAP related decisions as Change Matrix clouds, but can now use the new MERGE functionality to merge 3 or more Gap Decisions to find their Core Decision. Just select the decisions and click “MERGE”. Harmony will copy all the specific content from each of these decisions into the core decision template making it easy to find what is in common to verbalize the core decision
A number of Consultants have requested to add functionality to HARMONY to make it easy for them to register as HARMONY resellers. \ This will allow them to offer HARMONY at a special price to their customers. To register as a Reseller, just click on “RESELLER” link on the webapp.harmonyapps.com homepage and follow the process. Franklin’s Pro/Con List and Dr. Eli Goldratt’s Change Matrix and Evaporating Cloud methods.
Our Team shares some of our favorite tips for ease of use and productivity in Harmony:
We are excited to introduce you to new Goldratt Research Labs and Harmony team member. Jaco-Ben Vosloo joined our team in August 2015. He brings a wealth of experience
You can reach Jaco-Ben at:
Two months ago we released functionality to allow you to use HARMONY in your home language. Knowing how many of our users develop an S&T or Decision Cloud in one language and would like others to view the content in another language, we've gone all the way and are now proud to release our new "Content Translate" functionality. With just one click, you can now instantly view the full content of any S&T or Cloud in over 80 languages using our new embedded Google Translate widget!
One of the complaints we've received is that the titles of S&T nodes is not enough detail for stakeholders but that opening node details showing all the assumptions of necessity and sufficiency is too much. In response, we've developed a middle way. Why not use the S&T tree view to show not just a Title of the change that node represents, but also the Strategy (what for) and Tactic (How to) of that change. We've developed a similar S&T tree dashboard view to also see the strategy achievement and tactic completion status without having to open individual nodes. This makes validation and project reviews much faster and simpler without overwhelming stakeholders with too much details.
We've now made it MUCH simpler and faster to modify S&T Plan networks. HARMONY offers the ability to quickly create a critical chain based project plan to ensure a focused implementation without multi-tasking. This automated feature simply connects all the lowest nodes in your S&T will simple end-starts in series. If you want to edit or create new dependencies, you can now do this graphically. Just click on a node (or touch it for iPad users) and a red dot will appear. Now just drag the red dot to the node you want to connect it to with an end-start or start-start dependency. As simple as that.
Many of our users asked if we could include the option to add S&T project implementation costing at the tactic level. We thought this was a great idea, so our new version offers Project Costing functionality that allows you to specify daily rates and estimated man-days by Tactic for each Tactic participant to calculate the total S&T project implementation costs. This option is available under the new icon "Project Costing" on S&T Planning. The Project Cost is also part of the new MS Word export to enable users to use the export as a Business Plan or Project Proposal. From the screenshot below, you can see the Project Costing sheet, and also the impact of using Critical chain planning to aggregate safety into a Project Buffer will have on the execution speed of this project.
Our Team shares some of our favorite tips for ease of use and productivity in Harmony :
Goldratt Research Labs has recently release a new version in iTunes of their Goldratt's Dice Game for iPhone and iPads. The new version is only 99c and includes a new Bonus Level where you can freely experiment to find the highest leverage points to maximize your profit. The new version also include a new World Leader board so you can compete with and compare your score and setup for each of the three levels with other players around the world....and yes, we've already seen cases where the kids outperform their TOC trained parents...
Watch the video here
Why & How to validate our Assumptions...
Dr. Goldratt taught us that the ultimate constraint in organizations is management attention; simply because the number of things that demand or could benefit from their attention will always exceed their capacity. Dr. Alan Barnard, CEO of Goldratt Research Labs shared his latest research on how managers can find those assumptions that waste their management attention and productivity in this keynote presented at a recent seminar hosted by Daiwa House and Fujitsu in Japan.
The game is ideal for those times that you want to or need to be distracted a little ... to regain focus...and have some fun and learn something about managing flow in the process. So why not take a break...download it...and challenge your kids and colleagues to see who can get the highest score for each of the three levels.
Using Simulation to test our assumptions...
Every assumption in a Strategy & Tactic Tree or Change Matrix cloud provides insights into what stakeholders believe will work or not. We can test these assumptions logically or through actual implementation experiments. But there is another way to test assumptions. You can construct a dynamic simulation model representing any system, the work that flows through the system, the resources that do the work and the planning & execution rules that governs their performance.
Goldratt Research Labs have developed many such simulations with clients from both the Private and Public Sector. The below screenshots show a few of these models developed in AnyLogic (see www.runthemodel.com) to help organizations validate key assumptions they used to justify the change initiative proposed in their Organizations' S&T before actually starting a real proof-of-concept pilot or implementation. With these simulations, you not only can measure the impact of different resource capacities and/or changes in planning and execution policies and processes on operational and financial performance, but you can even measure the impact of such changes on management attention by monitor the amount of special cause variation events a specific scenario will generate. If you have would like to get more details on any of these models or have any questions, please contact Dr. Alan Barnard at contact
3D ER Simulation
Mining Supply Chain Simulation
3D Steel Plant Simulation
3D Oil Supply Simulation
Learn how to leverage HARMONY to manage your business transformation, solve real world problems and decisions, and communicate more clearly.
Do you want a free demo or need help in validating your Strategy and Tactic tree, creating and managing the implementation plan, or seeking advice on how to institutionalize the Audit functionality to resolve implementation problems and/or decisions?
We now have a team of experts available for custom-tailored workshop to ensure you are getting the full value from your Harmony software. We also offer 'train the trainer' programs to help consultants and implementers learn the most effective way to leverage Harmony for big improvement results!
Contact us today for a free demo or custom-tailored support or training quote!
https://harmonyapps.com/home/contact"
