Becoming a floor manager at a jam workshop

Is optimizing jam production that different than optimizing a software workflow \ deployment pipeline \ value chain \ another process people have to follow?

No.

Step #1: Identify the bottleneck in your process

• This is the easier part of the process: Just look at the backlog of each step in the process
• This is super easy if you use messaging: just see the queues. One should always fill up: there it is!

Step #2: Exploit the system's bottleneck

• i.e. remove waste from the bottleneck

Step #3: Subordinate everything else to help exploint the bottleneck

• Eveything else should help the step that is the bottleneck
• There is no point in focusing elsewhere. Investment there is a waste.
• Increasing throughput in steps before the bottleneck is even worse than waste: it makes matters worse. It's better to have the previous step idle

Step #4: Elevate the bottleneck

• Optimize it:
  • Start benchmarking
  • Do performance optimizations
• Scale out

Step #5: Go back to 1

• It is very likely that the system changed behaviour, and now there is another bottleneck which may be causing problems
• Go back to identifying bottlenecks if throughput isn't enough
• If on the other hand throughput is enough: stop, but be vigilant. Systems change