This schedule could well be the poster child for the how-making-ev-
erything-better-sometimes-makes-things-worse phenomenon. Improv-
ing the equipment reduced the length of the critical path, but actually
slowed things down, rather than speeding things up! Yes, there are
lots of other scheduling algorithms available, but the magic bullet has
yet to be found—no algorithm yet studied has generated consistently
optimal schedules. What is worse, there may be no such algorithm—at
least, not one that can be executed in a reasonable period of time!
However, there is one such algorithm that always works—construct all
possible schedules that satisfy the digraph, and choose the one that best
optimizes whatever criteria are used. There’s a major problem with that:
there could be an awful lot of schedules, especially if there are a lot of
tasks. We shall examine this situation in more depth in chapter 9, when
we discuss what is known in mathematics as the P versus NP problem.The Short-Order Cook, Two Georges, and Moneyball
When I was in graduate school, I would occasionally splurge by going out
for breakfast. The diner I frequented was typical for the 1960s—a few ta-
bles and a Formica counter with individual plastic seats surrounding a
large rectangular grill on which the short-order cook could be seen pre-
paring the orders. The waitresses would clip the orders to a metal cylin-
der, and when he had a free moment the cook would grab them off the
cylinder and start preparing them.
This particular cook moved more gracefully than anyone you are likely
to see on Dancing with the Stars. When sections of the grill dried out or
became covered with the charred remainders of eggs or hashed browns,
he scraped them off and poured on a thin layer of oil. Eggs were cooked
on one quadrant of the grill, pancakes and French toast on a second,
hashed browns on a third, and bacon and ham on the fourth. He never
seemed hurried, always arriving just in time to f lip over an egg that had
been ordered over easy, or to prevent bacon or hashed browns from burn-
ing. Some people find fascination in watching construction workers, but
I’ll take a good short-order cook over construction workers any time.
There is a certain poetry to the smooth integration of an assortment of
tasks that is sought in practically every enterprise that requires such an
integration—but how best to accomplish it? A notable arena for such en-
deavors is professional sports, in which team chemistry, the melding of
accomplished individuals into a cohesive unit, is the ultimate goal. Oft-
tried algorithms have decidedly mixed results. One such algorithm could
be described as “buy the best.” Jack Kent Cooke hired George Allen to
Prologue 7