Theory of Constraints 101: Applying the Principles of Flow to Knowledge Work | Praxis

The Theory of Constraints is deceptively simple... proposing a series of “obvious” statements... before you know it, you find yourself questioning the fundamental tenets of modern business and society...

first statement ... every system has one bottleneck tighter than all the others... broaden the concept... to constraints of any kind... second statement ... performance of the system ....is limited by the output of the tightest bottleneck or most limiting constraint... Any improvement not at the constraint is an illusion... there’s no way to strengthen a chain without strengthening its weakest link...

Now think about how a typical company operates...What if, by believing that we can improve a system as a whole by individually improving each part, we are living and working according to an economic paradigm that has been defunct for decades?