The Goal is an odd mixture of novel and management handbook. In the form of a novel – where the narrator is the head of a factory in trouble, threatened with closure – Goldratt presents the Theory of Constraints.

In Socratic form Alex, the narrator, first gets to figure the goal of the business, and then how to achieve it. According to The Goal the goal is making money. You can agree or disagree with that, but that’s the premise of the book. Once that’s clear, Alex is coached to think about what levers he can use to make the plant make more money, and then we get to read, in quite a lot of detail, about how he actually manages the production in his plant to make it happen.

As a novel, The Goal is well below average, but as a business book, it’s an effective and enjoyable way to present a relatively dull topic. I definitely found it more interesting and easier to read than most business books.

I read this book because it was mentioned by Scott Bellware at the not-ALT.NET open space earlier this year, among a raft of other books that somehow have to do with lean software development. (Scott has an extensive and thoroughly described Lean reading list on his blog, too.)

The Goal has nothing directly to do with lean software development, although there are certainly themes that are relevant: continuous improvement, focusing on finding and eliminating the biggest bottleneck first, the necessity of having some slack in your process, etc. But perhaps one needs to have invested more of one’s soul and life in the concept of Lean to find this really inspiring. To me it was worth reading once, but not something I’m going to re-read any time soon for fun or profit.

Amazon UK, Amazon US.