Goldratt's Flow Rules for Project Management

Mark Wilson is determined to prevent the sale of the family business, Wilson Advanced Solutions, against his father’s wishes. Customers are increasingly dissatisfied due to constant delays in delivering projects, and Mark searches for new management methods. During an Executive MBA program class, he discovers the concept of flow in operational processes—a solution that could address the company’s problems. The essence of the flow concept is that projects should move smoothly through the system. If flow gets clogged, projects pile up, delays increase, and the reliability of meeting deadlines drops. Mark learns to recognize specific obstacles to flow and implement rules to remove them, such as controlling the amount of work in progress, ensuring that all resources are ready before work begins, using time buffers correctly, and more. This engaging business story was written by Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag, the daughter of the famous physicist and economist Eliyahu Goldratt, who wrote the bestseller “The Goal” and dreamed of creating a book about his latest developments in project management.