In a nutshell, we want to stop trying to do the ‘wrong things righter’ (an over-emphasis on efficiency and/or cost-management), and instead do the right things (an emphasis on effectiveness and flow-management).

If you think of a process as a chain, you want to find and strengthen the weakest link in that chain. Any effort to strengthen other links doesn’t strengthen the chain (system).

To extend that analogy, sometimes, over-strengthening the non-weakest link can make the weakest link weaker, perhaps by having increased the load on it!

Resources

Talks

Basics of Theory of Constraints 2 hour lecture by Eli Goldratt (the creator)

Articles

Theory of Constraints in Management (4 part web article)

Books

• The Goal
• Critical Chain
• It’s Not Luck
• The Choice

all by Eli Goldratt

The Logical Thinking Process, by William H. Dettmer

5 Focusing Steps

1. Articulate the goal of the system. How do we measure the system’s success?
2. Identify the constraint. What is the resource limiting the system from attaining more of its goal?
3. Exploit the constraint to its fullest. How can we keep the constraining resource as busy as possible, exclusively on what it can do that adds the most value to the entire system?
4. Subordinate all other processes to the decisions made in Step 3. How can we align all processes so they give the constraining resource everything it needs, and nothing it doesn't?