Wrong Bottleneck: Why Implementing AI Isn't Speeding Up Your Business
davidtwaring · reddit · 2026-08-12
The author uses the 'Theory of Constraints' (TOC) from the classic management book The Goal to explain why many companies fail to see overall efficiency gains after integrating AI into their workflows.
The article points out that the overall speed of any process is limited by its slowest step (referred to as 'Herbie' in the book's analogy). Companies often use AI to speed up specific tasks like drafting posts or generating code, but if the core bottleneck—such as approvals or manual reviews—remains unresolved, overall output stays flat.
Key Takeaways:
- Don't just speed things up blindly; look for where work piles up (the queue), as that indicates the true bottleneck.
- Once the bottleneck is found, lighten its load by redistributing tasks to faster steps that have idle time.
- After resolving one bottleneck, move to the next one to continuously optimize the workflow.
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