Theory of Constraints

Posted by Rich Crowley in productivity, Project Management

I’m doing some reading on the “Theory of Constraints” (TOC) as it applies to project and portfolio management. In a nutshell, the jist of this theory is that every system is constrained by some bottleneck somewhere in the system. In a project, we often consider this to be the critical path.

Too often, we PM’s apply rigour everywhere in our PMBOK-centric approach to managing our projects in an optimal way. TOC stands this approach on its head and suggests that optimizing all subsystems in a system is not the best way to maximize outputs. Instead, if we focused more on fixing the primary bottleneck or constraint, we’d improve our overall system.

TOC suggests that in removing the constraint, we will create a new one somewhere else in the system but that’s ok. We just need to ensure we are able to see this and then re-focus our attention on that constraint.

By constantly identifying where the primary constraint is, we’ll improve our system outputs. Ignoring areas that are not operating in an optimal way is ok so long as they are not the primary constraint.