Chapter 11 – Dependent Events and Statistical Fluctuations

Rogo flies up to New York to meet Rogo in a hotel, where Goldratt has him explain
two of the most important concepts in The Goal and in the Theory of Constraints. 
GANTT charts don’t complete on time – a delay early causes delays later.  Later
events are dependent on earlier events.

If an activity has a mean time to completion, then it will complete around that mean. 
The time to complete experiences statistical fluctuations.  Those fluctuations are
additive if the events are dependent – early finishes do not create negative time.

“Why do you think it is that nobody after all this time and effort has ever succeeded
in running a balanced plant?” Jonah to Rogo, pg 86.

For the reader that has not worked in a plant or been involved with large project
management, it can be easy to believe their smartsheet or .xls. It takes some further
data work to show a mean time to completion with a standard deviation.  Re-running
the data (I would have done it with Crystal Ball earlier in life) with this included
would show that the time to completion for the whole project would continue to creep
out.

Just as with the financial metrics – local optima – completion of a single step, is not
what matters.  The goal is the completion of the whole project, not just one project. 
The goal is not just one financial metric, but the optimization of all three.

Racing through one step at the expense of others does not create a finished good
capable of creating revenue – the whole process must be complete.

Eleven explains two of the most important concepts in the book – thirteen provides
more detail on the same subject, but with a real world example.
Chapter 12 – Singles Bar
Seven, at four pages, was our first throw away chapter.  Twelve has two pages.

Rogo recalls another UniCo colleague whose wife left with a lipstick message of,
“Goodbye, you bastard.”  Julie foreshadows to him with her comments about going to
a singles bar with her friend, Jane.  Jane is the tiny devil sitting on Julie’s shoulder
asking for a divorce.

Chapter 13 – Herbie’s Hike

Herbie’s hike is the most known lesson taught by the goal.  Herbie is a, “fat”
[Goldratt’s term] boy scout, and as a good father, Alex is leading his son Davey’s
troop on an outing.  “Herbie the fat kid goal” is one of the most popular search terms
for the goal – this is an iconic character.

Herbie walks slow.  He is the slowest walker.  The goal is for the whole troop to finish
the hike.  But the troop does not finish until Herbie, the slowest walker, finishes.