Eric's Blogs

Today I'm posting my mini reviews on three TOC related books: "Goldratt's Theory of Constraints", "Necessary but not Sufficient" and "Critical Chain".

Dettmers book "Goldratt's Theory of Constraints" on the "Thinking Process" is a must have companion book that gives you the basis for using the process yourself. The book goes in depth in all the topics it covers. It's really like a classroom book and well worth reading.

In "Necessary but not Sufficient", we follow the move towards "value" of an ERP systems supplier and how, in parallel they have evolved their ERP system into a system for management by TOC.

All Goldratts books are good, but "Critical Chain" is even more so. I've learnt quite a bit about the complexities of managing in a multi-project environment while reading this book. While some might argue that anyone who has managed multiple projects should know this, I suspect that most of it remains unknown to the vast majority of project managers. Otherwise, overrun projects would be anecdotal not the norm.