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Critical Chain Project Management

More Projects, Faster, with Fewer Resources

"It’s not important to complete tasks on-time, it is essential to complete projects on-time."

No matter where you look in today’s competitive world, the pressure to complete more projects, 

faster, and at lower cost is pervasive. Speeding construction projects brings new plants and stores 

and their revenue streams on-line earlier, improving investment returns. Accelerating new product 

development and launch expands market share, increases sales and for many companies can be the 

difference between being the market leader or an also-ran. In information technology, bringing new 

systems on-line faster means enhanced capabilities for customer service, inventory management 

and a host of other mission-critical management activities. For most companies involved in strategic 

projects, delivering more projects faster is not just important, it is imperative.
 

While there is a wide range of different types of projects there is a surprisingly consistent set of issues or complaints across this spectrum. In most project environments, the list typically includes all or most of the following concerns:

· The original dues dates are not usually met

· There are too many changes

· Too often resources are not available where and when needed

   (even when promised)

· Necessary things are not available on-time (information,

   specifications, materials, designs, approvals)

· There are fights over priorities

· There are budget overruns

· There is too much re-work

The simple fact that this list is so common and pervasive, strongly suggests that the common problem is much more related to how companies manage projects than to any technical or specific factor. The existence of a common core problem also provides companies with an exciting opportunity to make significant strides in delivering more projects faster with fewer resources.

Our Critical Chain methodology highlights three factors in how companies manage projects that almost inevitably result in the effects listed above. These core drivers are:

1. Bad Multi tasking

2. Student syndrome

3. Parkinson’s Law

Bad multi-tasking is the process of stopping a task before it is finished in order to do something else that is perceived as immediately urgent, or otherwise more important. Each time a task is stopped there is an immediate efficiency loss due to the time

needed to "get back into" the task when it is resumed. In knowledge work especially, it is can take considerable time to re-orient oneself to the work each time it is re-started. Worse still are the delays these stops and starts cause to downstream tasks. Each time other work is inserted into a task, its elapsed duration grows. Because there are dependencies between tasks in projects these delays immediately start to delay the downstream tasks, and quickly impact the overall project timeline.

Given that most companies readily admit that this multi-tasking occurs frequently, and that people generally have many open tasks on their desks at any given time, it is not hard to see how the prevalence of this practice quickly results in the "Cascade Effect." In other words delays move like dominoes through the project, extending overall durations and delaying project completions.

(For a more complete explanation of this effect see "Multi-Tasking: Why projects take so long and are still late")

The second and third factors are directly linked to how companies manage safety time in projects.

Student syndrome refers to the phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before a deadline. The student syndrome is a form of procrastination.

Parkinson’s Law is an observation that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion," and that a sufficiently large bureaucracy will generate enough internal work to keep itself ‘busy’ and so justify its continued existence without commensurate output.

Uncertainty is the reality of projects. While some actions may be taken to reduce uncertainty, eliminating uncertainty and variability is simply not possible.

 

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