More sales, more pending work: finding the bottleneck

A busy week can end with very little work delivered. Effort is not always the issue: assignments may be waiting for a signature, a document or a review slot. I would examine that wait before asking the business to sell more.

Sales may be necessary. They may also lengthen a queue that is already struggling to move. The decision depends on what currently limits delivery and how much additional work that point can absorb.

A small calculation to make the difference visible

This scenario is hypothetical. A professional practice receives 10 complete case files a day, and its technical review completes 8. If they all need that review, there are no withdrawals or priority changes and both rates remain constant, the backlog grows by 2 files each day: 10 after five days.

The calculation says nothing about cash flow or profitability. Nor does it work if some files take ten minutes and others two hours. In that case, I would measure review time and type of work as well as the number of files.

Selling more does not, by itself, increase those 8 daily completions. But stopping new enquiries does not supply a missing document either. You need to distinguish demand, capacity and avoidable waits before acting.

The Theory of Constraints sets out five steps for focusing improvement on the limiting point. I would use it as a guide to investigate this case, without assuming that the whole business has a single cause of delay.

How to look for the blockage

I would take several recent assignments, including those that went well. I would record when they arrived complete, when each task began and when they left. I would separate working time from time spent waiting for documents, approval or availability.

If the queue before review keeps growing, I would check what consumes that resource. Is the reviewer searching for scattered files? Returning incomplete cases? Interrupting reviews to handle issues that another person could deal with under an agreed rule?

I would not blame the owner for approving sensitive decisions. I would separate those decisions from routine ones. A written limit for calendar changes can avoid repeated questions; a contractual exception may still need their approval.

What to change first

I would apply the five steps to this case gradually:

1. Identify where work that is ready to proceed is piling up.
2. Make better use of the limited resource: prepare documents and reduce avoidable interruptions.
3. Coordinate the rest: supply complete files and align incoming work with realistic capacity.
4. Increase capacity if that is not enough, through training, additional help or a suitable tool.
5. Measure again; the constraint may change.

I would not wait for a perfect process if a committed deadline requires immediate help. The guide orders the questions; urgency and risk matter too.

Automation might collect documents or flag a missing field. It does not replace the technical review that the case needs. To find out whether it helps, I would compare completed deliveries, the age of pending work, returns for incomplete information and overtime.

The useful question for the next meeting would be: “What work is ready but still cannot move forward?” The answer deserves checking against records before buying a solution.