Break the Bottleneck: Eliyahu Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints Shows Why Speed Comes from Slowing Down [Guru Advice #011]

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Eliyahu Goldratt startled manufacturers in the 1980s with a blunt claim: your organisation’s output is capped by one limiting step, not by the sum of all its parts. He called that limiting step a constraint and argued that most improvement programmes waste effort everywhere except where it matters. His novel-cum-management-text The Goal described a failing factory rescued by chasing a single choke point on the line. Four decades later the same insight applies to software releases, loan approvals, even hospital triage.

Goldratt’s Five Focusing Steps begin with identify the constraint. In practice the slowest workstation is often hidden by heroic fire-fighting. Look for queues, late hand-offs, or frantic overtime that keeps everything else busy. Modern teams deploy process-mining AI to trace digital footprints and reveal where work stalls. Once the constraint is visible, exploit it: feed it a steady stream of work, cancel side tasks, and give it first call on maintenance. Many leaders jump straight to capital spend, yet Goldratt insisted the cheapest capacity gain is eliminating idle gaps.