TOCICO — the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization — is the principal professional body for TOC practitioners worldwide. It provides certification programs, hosts an annual international conference, and serves as the institutional home for the global TOC community that eliyahu-goldratt's work created.
Role in the TOC community
TOCICO maintains and transmits the body of knowledge Goldratt developed: the Five Focusing Steps, the Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes (evaporating clouds, current reality trees, future reality trees), the drum-buffer-rope scheduling method, and Critical Chain project management. Its certification program provides a structured pathway for practitioners to develop competence in TOC tools and methods.
The organization connects practitioners across industries: manufacturing (where TOC originated), healthcare, project management, education, and increasingly software and knowledge work. TOCICO's annual conference is the primary gathering point for serious TOC practitioners and researchers.
Ching's position in the TOC community
Ching has presented at TOCPA (TOC Practitioners Alliance) events, including a 2018 webinar presenting the focccus-formula. This involvement situates Ching within the broader global TOC community, not only within the Agile-focused subset. While Ching's primary audience is software practitioners and Agile teams, his work is recognized within TOCICO circles as a legitimate extension of TOC principles into software domains.
This dual community membership — Agile Scotland and the TOCICO ecosystem — defines Ching's distinctive position: he is a TOC practitioner who speaks Agile, and an Agile practitioner who speaks TOC. TOCICO represents the upstream professional tradition that validates Ching's work from the TOC side, while lean-agile-scotland and agile-scotland represent the downstream community he is trying to reach.