Mental model · Systems
The constraint
The constraint: One point limits the throughput of the whole. Improving anything else changes nothing measurable.
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One point limits the throughput of the whole. Improving anything else changes nothing measurable.
Try it now
Map how work flows in something you run. Find where it piles up or waits.
What to do with the answer
Improve only that for two weeks, and measure whether the whole moved — not whether that step got faster.
Where it misleads
Constraints move. Once you fix one, a new one exists immediately, and continuing to optimise the old one is waste.
The module it belongs to
- Systems Thinking — Understand connections and consequences
The book behind it
- The goal — Its big ideas, in our own words.