It's not luck

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1. elviejoAug 2025
   The Goal and It's not luck by Goldratt.

   Showed a better way to manage anything in particular ourselves.

   Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl even in the darkest of times we kind find Meaning.

   A Guide to the good life. The stoics found a way to handle our human experience 2500 years ago.

   The mythical man month by Brooks. Everything we struggle with in software development we have been fighting since the 70s.

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2. anymouse123456Aug 2023
   Great recommendation!

   The book is mainly credited with introducing the Theory of Constraints [1], which asserts that any manageable system's throughput is limited by exactly one bottleneck.

   He goes on to encourage us to instantiate operating (and thinking) processes whereby we repeatedly discover and mitigate this bottleneck as each mitigation may result in a migration of the constraint.

   The main observation is that most of us are inclined and almost always incentivized to focus on local optima (our area, our lane, our discipline) and that this striving is a great way to destroy any given system, or at best, do nothing useful. Any small experience in the world of business will illustrate this quite clearly, IME.

   The sequel to The Goal is also quite good and is called, "It's Not Luck." This book takes the same characters into a larger organization where the constraints are in how their products are marketed, rather than produced in order to more fully demonstrate how the Theory of Constraints is not limited to activities on a factory floor.

   As mentioned elsewhere, the narrative and writing style can be distracting, but the concepts are timeless and extremely powerful.

   I have re-read or re-listened to both books at least once every year or two since the early aughts and I learn something new and relevant with each pass.

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157385.It_s_Not_Luck

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3. lbayesJan 2023
   There are some excellent sequels to "The Goal", especially, "It's Not Luck," which goes on to take the theory into product and market design. It overlaps somewhat with Christensen's work on Jobs to do.

   I've found lots of value in looking at all kinds of systems with this lens, though, like all things, it helps to not overdo it.

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4. gocartStatueDec 2022
   Re-read „It’s Not Luck” by Elijahu Goldratt; maybe it’s not „epiphany”, but very good instruction on tackling seemingly „impossible” projects.
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5. elviejoNov 2022
   It's not luck by Eli Goldratt. Where he introduces the logical thinking processes he used to develop his theory of constraints. It was graphs (links and nodes) to structure our reasoning.

   Then if you like it go to: The logical thinking processes; A systems approach to complex problem solving by Dettmer.

   And finally if you need to improve not only you thinking but that of a group in an open discussion go to: Dialog Mapping by Cocklin

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6. JtsummersJul 2020
   Following on from The Goal are It's Not Luck and Critical Chain. The latter of those is particularly good in combination with the more recent Phoenix Project.

   Each of these books is a bit utopian or idealistic. By doing what's suggested by the guru everything magically works out. But, while not magical, the ideas really do work and help operate and understand organizations. The principles are not complex, each book can probably be summarized in a 3-5 page paper. But the "case study" (quotes because it's a fictional plant/company, not just one obscured by pseudonyms) is good for illustrating the point and the path of process improvement.

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