Rating: 
Summary: Very Good!
Review: Dr. Goldratt's TOC is now amplified with the project manangement study.
Rating:
Summary: Its about time someone made sense about PM
Review: Someone has finally made common sense out of Project Management. I have taken several Project Management courses in Graduate School and Undergraduate and nothing comes close to the Critical Chain concept. I have restructured two of our "in progress" projects and I am looking forward to using Dr. Goldratt's methods on large-scale projects. A very good book for those who have to make sense out of the chaos called Project Management. Don't expect to be spoon fed the answers or even the concept, Dr. Goldratt's method of knowledge transfer is very contagious. Buy several copies so you can keep your own copy and not loose it to others borrowing it. My only criticism of Dr. Goldratt's book is that for the most part he makes upper management managers seem logical and clear thinking. Most of us if not all of us know that upper management managers are more like Dilbert's boss.
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Summary: Speed read, and got results in less than 1-hour
Review: Browsing through the bookstore, I skimmed the first half of the book (standing up). Although I don't consider myself an impatient new yorker, I found myself jump towards the end (leaning against the wall). I found very useful the TOC approach with imbedded real world applicability. I laughed realizing someone actually put in print what actually occurs in project management - DELAYS - real and virtual. I enjoyed the unveiling and realigning the critical path based on the critical chain. Although I am not a fan of novel reading, it was good and deserves applause. It would be easier to reference key concepts/ideas using bullet points. I found I got the point just reading the latter half. For the global company I represent, I found the concepts valuable for our Program Managers worldwide.
Rating: 
Summary: Good concepts, lousy novel
Review: The Critical Chain is the first "business novel" I've read although I've read a lot of business books and a lot of novels. I like the "business" part of this book (applying Theory of Constraints to project scheduling) a lot more than the "novel" part. I thought his female characters were shallow and stereotypical. Like others in this thread, I wish that the key concepts were summarized in an appendix. Nonetheless, the application of TOC to project scheduling is interesting and useful.
Rating:
Summary: Literature it ain't. But it might just mean better projects
Review: Easier to put down than The Goal or It's Not Luck. But for those, like me, that are in neither manufacturing nor marketing, it provides useful applications of TOC for project management. I wish Goldratt would summarize the principles of his "novels" in an appendix. Often I wish to refer back to the key principles that could be summarized in 5-10 pages, but instead I must pour through weak dialogue to pull them out for revew.
Rating:
Summary: After reading The Goal, Critical Chain--not what expected
Review: At the onset of his book Goldratt presents quite lucid and divergent approaches to key issues in Project Management.Yet after getting past half of the book, I could not gain "definition" of what the message was. May be it isn't really material for a novel. MAy be it needs to be read more than once.
Rating:
Summary: bad novel, good textbook, learned a lot.
Review: Don't swallow the hype. Its not gripping, its not
especially fast paced, you won't be glued to your seat. The story is poor and the characters would kill you and me both just for a chance to get promoted to two dimensions.
BUT, what this book is very good at is teaching the theory and application of the Theory of Constraints in a conversational tone. There's no equations and occaisionally it uses pictures to make its points. The format of a novel is a convention that allows the reader to slip through the text as if they were given in lecture style, rather than in the form of a textbook. A much easier way to take material that can be pretty esoteric. And the esoterica problem is handled by introducing several characters with "real world" problems that are analyzed througout the book. The targeteted level appears to be college undergraduate or even high school, which is to say its easy reading aimed at getting the concepts across without any oddball jargon.
The point of the story is how Theory of Constraints, and other management theories such as TQM, Continuous Quality Improvement and use of metrics can be applied with good effect to the Project Management world as well as to the Production and Manufacturing worlds. Critical Path Method is stressed as the key tool to examining and exposing the problems that will be encountered and the book then describes the management attitude and method changes that should be adopted to improve the overall effectiveness of a project team, and by extension, the whole organization.
This will never be a book you'll want to see made into a major Hollywood motion picture, but if you always wanted to understand and apply Theory of Constraints to your business practices, this is the painless way to sit through several lectures on the subject. You'll walk away with a few very useful tools and a map to the larger pitfalls you'll encounter (or may already BE encountering!) on your way to strengthening your orgainzation.
I got through it in about 14 hours reading, with frequent interuptions. If its something you need, its definitely worth doing.
Rating: 
Summary: TOC-driven project management at its best
Review: Critical Chain will revolutionize project management. "Eli" Goldratt's new business thriller has all the earmarks of a winner and no doubt will do for project management what The Goal did for production and It's Not Luck has done for marketing.
This time, the story evolves in a university setting and our determined hero Richard Silver is an Assistant Professor in business who exudes natural teaching ability, but is a bit short on securing academic tenure.
Critical Chain is as much an indictment of our current crop of non-relevant MBA programs as it is an expose of how TOC (Theory of Constraints) concepts can rejuvenate project management. Goldratt is well aware of the lack of relevance of some of today's university MBA offerings, as well as the growing list of companies creating their own programs, including such efforts as General Electric's highly regarded Crotonville leadership academy.
Never at a loss for a solution to problems which are first clearly identified using TOC methodology and associated Thinking Processes, Goldratt proceeds to solve project management uncertainties which, in the past, have defied even intensely focused, albeit more conventional solution attempts.
Transforming critical path technology into critical chain thinking, lies at the heart of Goldratt's TOC-driven project management philosophy. Using critical chain methods, the author shows us how to plan, implement, and execute projects according to "real-world" mandates, AND get them done in time and within budget.
TOC basics have taught us that every system has constraints and that invariably constraint time is more valuable than non-constraint time. This understanding is also basic to effective project management, as amply demonstrated by our story's other heroes, Professor Silver's students in his Project Management class.
Critical Chain's message is so logical and simple that it will probably take years before its "revolutionary" new technology will be accepted by today's critical path pragmatists. Don't waste your time with such uninformed skeptics. Hopefully, most of them will be working for the competition.
Read this book and find out how to use common sense, the TOC way, and complete your projects on time, every time.
Most of us have been involved with projects which didn't stand a chance of ever achieving their stated objectives. According to Eli, such predicaments are history, if you tackle them his Critical Chain way.
Bruno Lewandowski, Editor, World Aero-Engine Review.
Rating:
Summary: Goldratt has done it again! This time with Project Mgmt.
Review: If you only buy one book this year, this is it! Take the Theory of Constraints [TOC] and apply it to Project Management and you have Critical Chain. Set in a university with numerous business connections and you have the perfect environment for his latest business novel about TOC.
As good [if not better] than The Goal. It stands alone; one does not need to read The Goal or It's Not Luck to apprecaite this exciting new release.
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Summary: My Review of Critical Chain
Review: This is my book review, as published in the Northeast Florida Chapter of the Project Managment Institute July 200 newsletter: "I just finished reading a great book! Critical Chain is written by Eli Goldratt, previously of the Avraham Goldratt Institute (AGI), who is now leading his own organization. One could refer to Eli Goldratt as the father of the Theory of Constraints (TOC). TOC is an overall philosophy usually applied to running and improving an organization and readily applied to managing projects. The TOC tools relate to problem solving (what to change from, what to change to, and how to make that change) and daily management (win-win conflict resolution, effective communication, team building skills, delegation, and empowerment). In a nutshell, critical chain (which is a part of TOC) is a project management concept where slack is not applied to each task, but is instead collected as a buffer at the end of a project. Progress is based on performance against the schedule, coupled with calculating what portion of the buffer has been used. I was intrigued with the critical chain approach, so I picked up this book and am glad I did. While many educational books are dry reading (let's face it), Critical Chain is both educational and entertaining. The author provides a fictional setting to present step-by-step instructions on how to use the method, along with useful examples. More importantly, he explains how each step of the process evolved and what problems it resolves. Critical Chain is the latest in a series of books which discuss these solutions in detail (the preceding books are The Goal, The Race, and It's Not Luck). It took me about five hours to read and was so good that I'm anxious to read the others!"
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