TABLE OF CONTENTS The critical chain is the constraint for a single project. What is the constraint of an enterprise that performs multiple projects? How do you put the critical chains of multiple projects together in a way that identifies the constraint of the enterprise to produce projects that meet the three necessary conditions, and do it in a way that allows focus on increasing the project throughput of the enterprise? What is it that constrains the enterprise from completing more projects or completing the existing projects more quickly?
Consider a reference environment that most people are familiar with: mowing a lawn. Consider the amount of grass cut as the counterpart to completed projects. What happens when the grass is too long or when you try to push the lawn mower too fast? It bogs down and often stalls.
The same thing happens when you push too many projects into a multiproject environment without considering the capability of the constraint to perform the projects. If you push too many projects into the system, it will bog down and stall. People will work very hard, but projects will take a long time to complete (the engine is stalled much of the time), and a lot of management effort goes into restarting the engine and cleaning out the debris. It will seem like there are never enough of the key resources necessary to complete the projects.
With the lawn mower, you use the feedback from the system to adjust the...
