Critical Chain (1997), published by north-river-press, applies theory-of-constraints to project management and stands as eliyahu-goldratt's most successful domain expansion after the-goal. The novel is set in a university business school, where a professor struggling to develop a new course discovers the same dynamics that destroy plants also destroy projects: local efficiency thinking, hidden safety margins, and the absence of a system-wide constraint.
The central insight is that individual task safety margins — the padding every estimator adds to their commitments — are systematically destroyed by student syndrome (starting late) and Parkinson's Law (work expanding to fill time), while the overall project has no buffer at all. critical-chain-project-management solves this by stripping task estimates of individual buffers and pooling that safety into explicit project, feeding, and resource buffers managed through buffer-management.
The novel format again proved pedagogically powerful: readers could watch the principles fail and then work in real time, rather than simply being told how they function. Critical Chain created an entirely new practice area within TOC and spawned a substantial consulting and certification industry. It also demonstrated Goldratt's method — find the constraint, exploit it, subordinate everything else — could be applied to any system with a throughput objective, not just factories or businesses. Like the-goal, it was eventually adapted into hands-on educational materials and training systems, complemented by works like production-the-toc-way, which provide workbook-based practice for different learners.