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Critical Chain Project Management: BCS Nottingham & Derby Winter School 2006
Critical Chain Project Management: BCS Nottingham & Derby Winter School 2006
Management
One end-point
If I allow more time for every task in the plan, each task is
less likely to be late, but the Project end date will be
later...
If I allow less time, the end date will be earlier, but the
Project is more likely to overrun
Doing these may help the individual, but not the organisation
Plan C: Approach the problem in a different way
This second condition is much less likely than the first [ Law
of averages / Central limit theorem] and increasingly so
as the number of tasks increases
The Completion Buffer
Task A 10 d
Task C 10 d
Task B 10 d
Task A 10 d
Task B 10 d
Task C
Task B
Task C
Task B
Task C
Task B
Task C
Task B
FB
Task D
Planning Phase Summary
Making more progress than planned will add to the Completion buffer
B
At day 5, task A has 8 days
remaining (of 10) - Completion
Buffer is eroded by 3 days
100 %
Agenda:
1. Reminder of what tasks are on the Critical Chain.
2. Review Project status ( % Critical Chain outstanding).
3. Review Completion buffer status (Red, Amber, Green).
If necessary, initiate corrective actions.
4. Review Feeding buffers status (Red, Amber, Green).
If necessary, initiate corrective actions.
5. Review tasks in progress to ensure earliest completion in full.
6. Review tasks not started to ensure earliest start where
appropriate.
Using Buffer Management to drive ongoing
improvement
Buffer Management measures are fact-based and
objective
Buffer Management meetings highlight buffer erosion
/ Project delays
Preventing the causes of delay will speed up your
Projects
Your process of ongoing improvement is simply to
eliminate the causes of delay by following up on the
issues highlighted in Buffer Management meetings
As your Projects run faster and more reliably,
continue to eliminate more and more causes of delay
How Does Critical Chain help our Project
Management ?
Aggregated contingency and 'Roadrunner' style
Effective due-date protection and extra effective capacity
More reliable on time in full to budget delivery performance
Buffer measures
Objectivity and clarity
Better focused meetings, better directed recovery efforts, better informed
stakeholders, less waste and more productivity
Less encouragement of 'coping behaviours
Buffer Management
Focus for ongoing improvement efforts
Without CCPM
If the plan is not based on the Critical Chain, it may be infeasible
If the Critical Chain is not known, the Project Manager cannot focus
on it
Without contingency the plan is not robust
If contingency is all in the task estimates, it's still not robust its just
longer, and there is no sense of urgency
Without feeding buffers, an early completion will not help the end
date, because the next task has to wait for its other prerequisites
With multi-tasking and interruptions > 25% capacity is wasted
Interruptions on Critical or Feeding Chains delay Project Completion
Measures are backward-looking or misdirect attention
Improvement processes lack focus
Multi-Project Pipelines
The Goal is to maximise Project throughput over
some timeframe
100 %