In 1996, when I wrote Goldratt's Theory of Constraints: A Systems Approach to Continuous Improvement, I intended to write the "how-to" for those interested in learning the logical thinking process. Though the first chapter laid the foundation in constraint theory (of which the thinking process was a part), the balance of the book described the "state of the art" in the thinking process at the time. But as with any such book, it could only be a "snapshot in time." The thinking process was not fully matured when I wrote GTOC. I used it as the primary text in my seminars and workshops on the thinking process. But over the next several years, I found that I was having to supplement the original material with newer, improved instructions and explanations in order to see better results from my seminar participants. By 2005, I had a fairly thick three-ring binder that I was distributing with the GTOC text. And I was telling students to disregard certain parts of GTOC and use the material in the binder instead.
In 2006, my publisher, Quality Press, asked me if I would be interested in updating GTOC to a second edition. I saw the opportunity to incorporate a lot of the three-ring binder into the original text, delete the material that I considered no longer relevant, and simplify the learning process. But as I became involved in the modification of the original, I realized that the manuscript was turning into a completely new book. It had substantial overlap with GTOC, but is was different enough that it warranted a change in the title and structure, rather than merely being labeled GTOC, second edition. My later thinking about the thinking process was also strongly influenced by my writing of Strategic Navigation in 2003.
Additionally, the passage of 11 years has afforded me the opportunity to replace outdated examples with newer ones and to improve the quality of the graphics. Ad added benefit (not a rationale for writing a new book in the first place) was the opportunity to include tree-drawing software with it. That wasn't possible when I wrote GTOC.
