2. Eli Goldratt
“The Goal, shook up the factory floor. Will
Critical Chain do the same for projects?”
• The Goal
– Introduced the Theory of Constraints
• Critical Chain
– Applying the TOC framework to managing the
development of new products and other products
3. Focusing on the Constraints
• How to boost the performance of any process
that involves a series of interdependent steps
• Focus on bottlenecks or constraints rather
than on breaking the process down and
improving the efficiency of each step
• Bottlenecks widened by changing policies that
may promote efficiency
4. Focusing on the Constraints
Critical Chain = Critical Path + Scarce Resources
• For smooth flow of critical chain
– Use safety buffers
– Allow extra time for critical path
– Allow extra time for non-critical path that feed
into the scarce resources
– Tightly schedule the activities of the scarce
resource
5. Focusing on the Constraints
• Successful Organizations
– Putting emphasis on coordinating and
communication
– Continual communication and coordination
becoming mandatory
6. Focusing on the Constraints
• Elaborate plans should not distract managers
from focusing on constraints
• Most projects have one/two essential
constraints-addressing them most important
• Proper use of measurements
– Induce the parts to do what is good for the whole
– Direct managers to parts that need their attention
• Reduce number of milestones as they motivate
managers to insert safety time before each
milestone
7. Managing Projects as a Portfolio
• Managers cannot isolate and control different
projects easily
• They need a wider perspective of aggregate
project planning
• Projects fall short of resources or lose direction
due to lack of agreement between senior and
junior managers leading to slowing down of
project and also failure to kill them
• Thus organizations have too many projects
compared to available capacity
8. Putting Flexibility where It Counts
• When the degree of change involved is great,
managers need to approach projects differently
• Projects incorporating discontinuous
technologies require managers to apply stringent
& individualized criteria for determining how to
proceed
• Goldratt’s flexible approach may be more easily
applied to products that can be frequently
modified than to capital intensive or mission-
critical products, such as aircraft engines
9. Conclusion
• Process Management: Eliminates variability
• Project Management: Accepts variability as
each project is unique
• Critical chain theory cannot be fully
implemented for projects due to high level of
uncertainty
• In truth, Leadership may be the larger
constraint
