[If you haven’t read the original version of The Goal – it’s a better book. Here’s a chapter-by-chapter video summary, and a <60 second summary too.]

[Click here for a 60 second video summary of the first 8 chapters of Goldratt’s rules of flow.]

The original The Goal was divided into 40 chapters, which made it easy to do a summary of the book by quarters. Rules of Flow is 171 pages with 27 chapters, and at the close of Chapter 8, we’re at page 46.

The Plot

Marc Wilson, age 32, runs the engineering team for his father, Isaac at the business he created Wilson Advanced Solutions. In the first chapter they loose their biggest customer, Doolen, because their projects are too late, which leads Isaac to say he’s thinking of selling the business. Marc enrolls in an executive MBA program, where his Professor Richard Silver teaches a class on rules of flow. Marc visits his older sister, Sam, who runs the production team at a location in the South and has a successful family – Marc is single and lonely. In class Marc learns about triage and the harmful effects of multitasking.

The Writing and Editing

There are many incomplete sentences, awkward indentation and other publishing / editing errors. Looking to the characters from the original The Goal – Marc is a childless Alex Rogo; Richard Silver is Jonah.

What’s The Goal of this Book?

It appears targeted at executive MBA programs with an emphasis on program management for IT.