Theory of Constraints

The Theory of Constraints is a management philosophy according to Eliyahu M. Goldratt that aims to identify and optimize bottlenecks in a system in order to improve overall performance. A bottleneck is the limiting factor that determines the throughput of a system.

The concept of the critical path, which focuses on all activities without buffer times, is also bottleneck-oriented. If one such activity is delayed, the duration of the entire project is automatically delayed.