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Title: Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt ISBN: 0-88427-153-6 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.79 (48 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Wow, it works in the novel...
Comment: As with the Goal, the concepts that Goldratt uses to proselytize are a subtle mix of concepts that are on the border of being completely natural to the reader. Anyone who has managed projects, worked with EVM or other common methods will find a lot of the material that he presents to be just a slight twist on what they are used to seeing. In doing so, he manages to introduce a number of concepts that are new to the audience, but are not totally alien to their knowledge of how projects ought to work.
Unfortunately, he goes one step further (as in The Goal) and uses the form of fiction to tie the whole thing together. When I was done with the book, I set it down and said "those were some interesting concepts, and they sure helped the folks in the book". It was a few moments later that I realized that the characters, plot and workability of the concepts in the book was complete fiction. Everything worked so well when the characters used his methods, and didn't work at all when they didn't. That has a disturbing tone to it, since I know plenty of projects that have gone the other way in both cases.
This is not to say that the concepts that Goldratt brings forth aren't interesting, valid or usefull (especially when effectively tied to other management concepts), but it is to say that you won't get anything useful out of this book, aside from a desire to attend one of his seminars.
Rating: 5
Summary: Goldratt is an Industrial Engineering Guru!
Comment: Goldratt has done many valuable things for the practice of Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. To fully appreciate what he is doing, one really should have a background in mathematical programming, but what he has done for project management is truly valuable. He is very intentional in his writing style, and fortunately for the layperson, he leaves the linear programming formulation of what he's describing out of things.
It is true that Goldratt's ideas could be stated in twenty pages or so, but he is very wise and intentional in not giving away the answers. None of my professors at Berkeley would give out answers when it is better for students to learn things on their own.
At least one of the Goldratt books is tremendously helpful reading before starting the graduate programs in transportation engineering. It presents in a very intuitive way what Carlos Daganzo, Gordon Newell, Adolf May, and other big names in traffic flow theory have explained so explicitly in precise mathematical form. The five step focusing process is very useful in the evaluation of cyclic servers and bottlenecks, the statistical process control techniques are necessary to keep projects, plants, and transit operations on schedule, and the evaporating clouds are tremendously helpful in solving planning problems of conflicts between the environment and improving transportation system performancs, etc.
Goldratt's work is so much more valuable than optimization techniques alone could ever be. Goldratt helps spot what is and is not a valid optimization problem. It ingrains the basic results of optimization in the reader's mind, so it can be applied quickly and intuitively. All the benefits of the simplex algorithm with none of the mathematical formulations.
And yes, a lot of business school curricula are full of it.
Mark McDonald
MS/PhD Candidate
University of California, Berkeley
Rating: 3
Summary: Quite readable for an educational book
Comment: I got this book for my "excellent work". Initially I thought it was going to be boring, but it turned out it is reasonably well written and interesting. However, at times it is too slow and makes you realise why there are all these management summaries out there. The concept of "critical chain" itself is quite useful, if implemented properly. However, I don't think many companies will be able to do this, because of the temptation to remove the buffer time after the new estimates are made, and the fact that people will know this in advance, and still secretly add buffer time of their own to the individual steps. This is what happened where I worked, anyway.
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Title: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox ISBN: 0884270610 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: May, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: It's Not Luck by Eliyahu M. Goldratt ISBN: 0884271153 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Theory of Constraints by Eliyahu M. Goldratt ISBN: 0884271668 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Race by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Robert E. Fox ISBN: 0884270629 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: October, 1986 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Necessary But Not Sufficient by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Eli Schragenheim, Carol A. Ptak ISBN: 0884271706 Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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