Critical Chain

Johnny Fisher is another professor at Richard’s university, and he serves as a kind of foil to Richard, meaning he contrasts certain elements of Richard’s characterization. Where Richard is specifically opposed to mathematics and calculations, Johhny has a reputation for excelling and showing specific interest in math, especially optimization and modelling. Johnny’s purpose is to show the importance of calculations, while still emphasizing the greater importance of conceptual change. His colloquium on the “cost world” and the “throughput world” demonstrates how the most mathematically minded experts need to concede to the overall concept of production or project management. Though cost is where Johnny’s mathematical expertise is most obviously applied, his conversion to focusing on the throughput world highlights how different skills are needed in different situations.

Johnny introduces critical topics to Richard’s developing ideas, such as the Theory of Constraints and the evaporating cloud, and he is the person to introduce the idea of offering bonuses and penalties to vendors to shorten their lead times. TOC is originally an idea centered on production, but Johnny’s calculations are still valuable in showing the importance of TOC, such as Don asking Johnny for the total investment cost of the steel mill, when Don “refused to look at the papers” (134). All Don wants is the “bottom line,” which then shows how Don’s methodology costs much less than traditional methods of improving a business. Contrastingly, Richard understands the need to incorporate the vendors’ perspectives into negotiations, but Johnny solidifies the discussion by figuring the actual costs of delays and rewards of early completion for the developer, therein justifying the penalties and bonuses transferred to the vendors. The evaporating cloud method is the predominant means by which Richard develops the Critical Chain method, marking Johnny as a key contributor to the overall concepts of the novel and showing how both concrete and abstract ideas are needed to solve complex problems.

B. J. vonBraun is the president of Richard’s university, and she forms the primary antagonist in the novel, though this role is limited to the extent that she only appears to be an antagonist in Richard’s career. She threatens to deny his tenure and end his employment at the university, and she speculates that she may need to cut the business school’s budget severely to match the decreased demand for MBA students. However, these tactics are ultimately for the benefit of the university, which is her primary allegiance, and the negative impacts to Richard and the business school are not malicious or ill-informed. Jim describes B. J. as “a cold-blooded efficiency machine” (165), and he notes that most people have this same impression of her. When B. J. meets with Bernard Goldsmith, though, B. J. comments on the professors she needs to fire, noting: “I can picture their families. I can picture how it will ruin them” (74), contemplating resigning rather than proceeding with the budget cut.

B. J.’s character is torn between efficiency and humanity, but she clearly proves herself to be a well-rounded, if static, character. When Jim proposes offering a deal to companies that send their employees to the Executive MBA program, B. J. does not react like Page, who is offended at the potential loss in reputation, instead weighing Jim’s suggestion as a possible means to alleviate the university’s struggles without firing any professors. In scenes like the YPO meeting, B. J. seems ruthless in her push to get Richard to advocate greater enrollment, followed by her use of guilt and shame to coerce company presidents into a committee for that same goal, but these methods are for the good of both the university and the professors she wants to retain. Her true purpose as a character is to set a requirement on the innovations in the novel. It is insufficient to simply find problems or propose possible solutions, as these will not result in real-world, material benefits. Because B. J. acts as a judge of whether a proposal is innovative and applicable, she is the final arbiter of the Critical Chain method, itself, serving to show the reader how the Critical Chain is a crucial innovation to project management.

The Genemodem think tank consists of Mark Kowalski, Ruth Emerson, and Fred Romero. Each character presents a different component of critical importance in project management. Mark is an open-minded leader with an imposing presence, allowing him to absorb new ideas, take a broad view of a project, and make reasonable decisions while commanding respect. Ruth is the innovative thinker of the group, as she is the most capable of identifying flaws in assumptions, and her main contributions are usually questions that aim at unforeseen or disregarded issues in the project. Fred is the most stubborn of the group, and his resistance to new ideas provokes the need for definitive proof before the group can proceed with a new method or idea.

Ruth is a brand manager, meaning she primarily works in marketing, and her role explains her unique ability to see outside and around the issues she and her classmates encounter. Early in the class, Richard notes how Ruth’s “‘innocent’ questions all stem from a rare ability to look at reality as it is” (51), which is the key element in her critical thinking and innovative reasoning regarding project management. It is Ruth’s acknowledgement that a noncritical path can become a new critical path when it encounters delays that could impact the original critical path, which then leads to Richard’s development of the critical chain as a solution. Ruth’s role in the novel is to embody the need for new perspectives in trying to develop new and innovative solutions.

Fred is Ruth’s foil, as he tends to rely more on factual or quantifiable information. He is an accountant and project auditor, which aligns his character with calculations, cost, and practicality, each of which often clashes with the novel’s focus on the “throughput world” over the “cost world.” One of Fred’s key characterizing moments comes in his discussion of safety added to lead times on tasks. While Ruth is content to summarize the accuracy of time estimates as a self-fulfilling prophecy, Fred notes: “In some of our cases, the work is already completed. And you know what? The original estimates were not far off” (63), showing Fred’s preference for complete sets of data. However, Fred is an important component in the development of the Critical Chain method, as his demand for physical proof commands Richard’s involvement in Genemodem’s projects, allowing Richard to test and refine his method in the real world.