The Goal

This book fundamentally changed how I think about business processes and problem-solving. I was drawn into the story of a plant manager struggling to save his factory and found Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints incredibly insightful for me as a programmer inside a development team.

The narrative format made complex concepts easy to understand and apply. I learned to identify and address bottlenecks in any system, which has been invaluable in both professional and personal contexts. Despite being a business book, I found it engaging and applicable to my day-to-day challenges as a programmer. 

I was a long-time skeptic about the business novel format, but The Goal changed my mind.

In this book, Goldratt presents concepts like Theory of Constraints with a business thriller (seriously). You get to live the same aha moments as the protagonist, Alex Rogo, as he encounters the pipe-smoking philosopher Jonah.

The setting may be a factory, but you’ll find many parallels to your DevOps work in this book.

This is one of the few books I’ve read multiple times. 

Some feel this is a book about business operations, but for me it’s much more. I was assigned to read it in college and fell in love. To succeed in life, you must question your assumptions, embrace learning and improving as fundamental goals in life, and learn to leverage the knowledge of others, not just your own insights and abilities. 

This is a business novel that teaches Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, but for me it’s a primer on how to think in a manner that will positively impact how… show more.

This book focuses on Continuous Improvements by optimizing bottlenecks within an organization. By building structure that supports bottlenecks we can optimize the overall throughput of an organization. This book has been recognized worldwide as an authoritative tool for improvements. What makes the book so successful is its ability to be read as a novel, demonstrating its concepts in a story-like format. 

I read this book in my early twenties when I was still a programmer. It influenced my thinking so heavily that I kept finding myself drawn into process improvement. The Goal teaches Goldratt’s theory of constraints through a suspense novel. The main character, Alex Rogo, is put in charge of a failing factory and we follow his hero’s journey turning the plant around. Alex Rogo doesn’t use “best practices”, he finds a great mentor and seeks his own solutions. It’s a great lesson in critical thinking.  It’s inspiring and memorable to witness “eureka moments”, like when Alex solves his work… show more.