Jul
04

Theory of Constraints

I’m writing a series of notes on the “Theory of Constraints”, based on the “I’m not a bottleneck! I’m a free man!” sessions at XP2005 and SPA2005.

Why did I get interested in the Theory of Constraints?

  • It gives me a different perspective to look at systems and organisations
  • The Theory of Constraints is very simple. But the conclusions one can draw from it are often wonderfully counter-intuitive, yet very effective
  • It is a complementary tool to “Lean Thinking”: ToC tells you what to optimize, Lean tells you how to optimize. ToC focuses the system optimization effort where it has the most effect.
  • ToC is a whole-system method. Local optimisations often have detrimental global effects. ToC helps me look at the whole system and then take action at the local level (the bottleneck).

Read more about it:

TheGoal ItsNotLuck ThinkingForAChange