About this Presentation
Large capital and construction projects continue to struggle with delays, cost overruns, and disappointing results. Bent Flyvbjerg famously described this persistent pattern as the “Iron Law of Megaprojects”: over budget, over time, and under benefits—again and again.
This presentation explores how organizations can break that pattern by developing a Flow System Capability for managing complex project environments. Drawing on the Theory of Constraints, Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), and Lean Construction practices such as Last Planner, TAKT, BIM, and Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), the presentation shows how integrating these approaches around Goldratt’s Flow Principles can dramatically improve project performance.
Rather than optimizing individual tasks or disciplines, this approach focuses on managing system-wide flow: controlling work-in-process, synchronizing teams, prioritizing through constraints, and buffering against variability.
We use several example including a real large-scale Brownfield project case study where this integrated approach enabled the team to move from firefighting and fragmentation to coordinated flow—resulting in a shutdown completed 20% faster than planned, record operational performance, and rapid return on investment.
What Will You Learn
To help you get the most value from this session, we’ve highlighted a few key points. These takeaways capture the main ideas and practical insights from the presentation, making it easier for you to review, reflect, and apply what you’ve learned.
This session argues that complex projects do not fail because they need more control layers, but because traditional project management amplifies interdependence, multitasking, and chaos instead of protecting flow.
A major insight is that TOC can serve as the operating spine that integrates CCPM, Lean Construction, AWP, BIM, and execution governance into one flow-based system, rather than leaving teams to manage competing methodologies in parallel.
The presentation makes the hidden enemies of project flow very concrete: excess WIP, harmful multitasking, missing full kit, unresolved clashes, and local optimization. It then points to practical rules of flow that can systematically counter them.
What makes the session especially compelling is that it backs the model with recent complex-project results, including faster shutdowns, production records during execution, earlier ROI, and major capacity gains in live industrial environments.
Instructor(s)
Javier Arevalo
Global & Founding Partner -Goldratt Group
TOC Jonah – TOCICO Certified
Born in Chile 1962, Lived and married in Venezuela for 40 years and with a wonderful daughter. Now back in Chile for the last 15 yrs.