In this podcast we will review a book on PM. The book is called Critical Chain and is authored by DR Eliyahu Goldratt. Although the book came out a few years ago but due to the non-conventional way in which it approached a number of PM topics, it continues to be quite popular today. As the name of the book implies, the book focuses on the topic of critical chain in PM, which is a concept that Dr Goldratt introduces in the book. This is different from the concept of critical path that we as PMs know from our work in PM. In addition to the new concepts that Dr Goldratt introduces in the book, the non-conventional style of the book, which is written as a story novel has also added to its popularity. We will cover those aspects in this review as well.
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By taking this view the author introduces a number of practices. These include introducing safety buffers at strategic points in the project flow, constantly monitoring the health of the critical chain, monitoring tasks on their remaining duration and not their percentage complete, and other such practices. Over the years, organizations have found these practices to be effective to deliver projects on time and within budget.
The book introduces this concept of critical chain by narrating a story like in a novel. The story includes a number of characters from a university. For example, there is a professor who is aspiring to get tenure in the university but then finds him struggling to keep his job in the university because of the falling interest and enrollment in the executive MBA programs nationwide. Yet his engaging teaching style and specific work in a Project Management class earns him accolades in the institution where he teaches and also amongst his students.
Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a method of planning and managing projects that emphasizes the resources (people, equipment, physical space) required to execute project tasks. It was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. It differs from more traditional methods that derive from critical path and PERT algorithms, which emphasize task order and rigid scheduling. A critical chain project network strives to keep resources levelled, and requires that they be flexible in start times.
In a project plan, the critical chain is the sequence of both precedence- and resource-dependent tasks that prevents a project from being completed in a shorter time, given finite resources. If resources are always available in unlimited quantities, then a project's critical chain is identical to its critical path method.
Critical chain project management uses buffer management instead of earned value management to assess the performance of a project. Some project managers feel that the earned value management technique is misleading, because it does not distinguish progress on the project constraint (i.e., on the critical chain) from progress on non-constraints (i.e., on other paths). Event chain methodology can determine the size of the project, feeding, and resource buffers.
Resources are assigned to each task, and the plan is resource leveled, using the aggressive durations. The longest sequence of resource-leveled tasks that lead from beginning to end of the project is then identified as the critical chain. The justification for using the 50% estimates is that half of the tasks will finish early and half will finish late, so that the variance over the course of the project should be zero.[citation needed]
With no slack in the duration of individual tasks, resources are encouraged to focus on the task at hand to complete it and hand it off to the next person or group. The objective here is to eliminate bad multitasking. This is done by providing priority information to all resources. The literature draws an analogy with a relay race. Each element on the project is encouraged to move as quickly as they can: when they are running their "leg" of the project, they should be focused on completing the assigned task as quickly as possible, with minimization of distractions and multitasking. In some case studies, actual batons are reportedly hung by the desks of people when they are working on critical chain tasks so that others know not to interrupt. The goal, here, is to overcome the tendency to delay work or to do extra work when there seems to be time. The CCPM literature contrasts this with "traditional" project management that monitors task start and completion dates. CCPM encourages people to move as quickly as possible, regardless of dates.
Because task duration has been planned at the 50% probability duration, there is pressure on resources to complete critical chain tasks as quickly as possible, overcoming student's syndrome and Parkinson's Law.
but it also considers the resources needed to complete a project. Because there are so many unknown variables that can contribute to resource constraints, the critical chain method builds resource buffers (excess resources to act as a barrier) into the project timeline. Unlike the critical path method, which only focuses on when tasks are completed, the critical chain method dictates project success by how quickly resource buffers are consumed. If your team hasn't used any resource buffers, your project is progressing successfully.
The feeding chain is a secondary chain of dependent tasks that need to run concurrently with the critical path. Each feeding chain eventually merges with the critical path. This is because the string of events in the feeding chain only affects one of the tasks on the critical path. The feeding chain needs to run at the same time as the critical path to prevent any delays within the critical path.
While these are still steps to the critical path, there are some tasks in a feeding chain that must happen in tandem with the critical path. For example, before sending out party invitations, the team needs to decide who to invite. Before hosting the event, they need to purchase decorations according to the theme, and set up the event. These are all examples of tasks that are in a feeding chain.
Buffers are safeguards built into the resources of the critical chain to ensure a project runs smoothly. Like bumpers in a bowling lane, these buffers are designed to give projects extra wiggle room in the event that something doesn't go according to plan.
Feeding buffers: The extra time that's placed between the feeding chain (also known as the non-critical chain) and the critical chain. Adding this buffer into the timeline prevents any delays from the feeding chain affecting the critical chain.
When you're using the critical chain method, the critical path is the spinal cord of your entire project. It's the entire basis of planning, so figuring out what individual tasks make up that core chain is extremely important.
If you can, estimate how many resources you'll need to complete this project. Estimate how many people it will take to complete a specific task on the critical chain, and approximately how long it will take them. Do this for every task laid out on the critical chain. Based on these calculations, do you have enough resources to complete this project?
Make critical chain scheduling simple by using a work management tool like Asana to help keep your entire team on track. With features like Timeline, team members can quickly get an understanding of task durations, completion dates, and critical resources all in one place.
In the Critical Chain Method, a network diagram is created first. Then the second step is to develop the schedule by assigning each activity to occur as late as possible to still meet the end date. The third step is adding the resource dependencies. Finally, the critical chain is calculated.
But why using Critical Chain Method? What are the benefits? As we know, you will not have unlimited project resources in a project. These resources might be people, equipment, or physical space, etc. Even if there is not a mandatory dependency between the activities, sometimes the same resource may perform the activities. So this creates a dependency between the resources. This is why all of these dependencies must be considered in critical chain method as well.
Of course, project management texts have long told managers to focus on constraints. For projects, the constraint is the critical path, the series of tasks that determines the minimum time needed for the project. No matter how quickly the other tasks are completed, the project cannot be finished any sooner unless the tasks on the critical path can be done faster. But Goldratt adds an important second constraint to this framework that managers often overlook: scarce resources needed by tasks not only on and off the critical path but by other projects. In the case of developing a new product, for example, a manager may schedule the different tasks according to the pace of the critical path but still face delays because the computer-assisted design machine needed for several of the tasks is bogged down with other jobs. The critical chain thus refers to a combination of the critical path and the scarce resources that together constitute the constraints that need to be managed.
A significant weakness of Critical Chain, therefore, is that it leads us to believe that project management can be successfully accomplished largely through the same rational approach that works for production management. But projects involve much higher levels of uncertainty than processes do and depend much more on the contributions of individuals. For example, the book advises managers to work with the different individuals and functional departments involved in a project to set estimates for lead times so that they meet the needs of the critical chain. But anyone who has worked on a project, been a manager of key personnel on a project, or been a senior manager mediating a resource conflict among a number of projects knows that it is a rare organizational culture indeed that is capable of such an impersonal, rational approach to setting lead times. Organizations with an open, team-oriented environment at all levels, that tie the way they compensate individuals and measure their performance to the realization of common goals, are the ones most capable of this form of collaborative management. 2ff7e9595c
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