Critical Chain

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's September 2001

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When I first heard that we were able to pick up some extra credit for doing a book report on a Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, I figured that it would be a good idea for me to set the time aside to do the report. I must be honest that I have never read a book with a topic that is like this. I was expecting the author to bore me with textbook like descriptions of things that he has learned from his time in classes and in the field. But from the very beginning of Critical Chain, Eliyahu used a much different approach. It was not just a book about a critical chain; it was an actual story that has a specific goal and an interesting way of leading us through this difficult topic. I normally would appreciate a story that also has within it information and ideas that I can use, but in this case, I was reading this particular book in order to get information on project management.

His attempt to make the story interesting took away from the point of the book. If he would have cut just some of the stuff about his wife, money problems, feelings of inadequacy, and other worthless personal information the point of the book would not have been quite so diluted. Even with the things that I did not like, I still think that my time reading "Critical Chain" was worthwhile.

I had a couple of things from the book that I think will benefit me the most in the future. The first being that most all problems that come up in a project have to do with either direct or indirect uncertainties. He referred to this phenomenon as Murphy's Law. He said in...