Tomorrow I'd like to post my thoughts on the conflict between geek work (as Paul Glen called it), and Road Runner behavior which I discussed as a necessary prerequisite to a Critical Chain implementation, yesterday. Today, I'd like to talk about what road runner behavior means.

Road Runner behavior is common in some other lines of work. One that jumps to mind is emergency services. Take fire fighters as an example. When they get the call, the must respond at the fastest safe speed. They are measured by how long it takes them to respond to a call. Readers in the UK will know that the government measures the ambulance service this way too. In fact, since the John Major government there have been standards for the number of minutes which are acceptable in which to respond to call. As a result, slightly more remote parts of the UK, where there isn't an ambulance base within a reasonable distance (in time) have extra ambulances parked often in the street in case of an emergency. So that an ambulance can attend an emergency quickly and provide paramedic care as soon as possible. For emergency services Road Runner behavior is essential. The metric of the Road Runner is lead time. No one counts the slack time.

So what do these fire fighters and paramedics do when they are road running? Do they sit around the fire house and play cards as popular culture would have us believe? Do they goof off during those slack periods? Or do they busy themselves with day-to-day maintenance, inspecting fire hydrants, providing fire prevention consulting and in training?

Tomorrow, Geeks and Road Running...