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Learning Objective To understand how TOC can be used to improve project execution performance

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Introduction Projects show the same symptoms across many types and sizes, over a long period, an even across many countries and cultures, isn’t likely that there is a fundamental flaw in the way the projects are being managed. A well known report shows that after more than 10 years of improvement, the number of successful application development projects actually declining

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The Vicious Cycle • Project managers add enough safety in our estimates at the task level to make sure that considering our past experience • Owing to uncertainty, our detailed plans start becoming irrelevant

• These things lead to problems and some times, there is a chaos. This is a vicious cycle, the negative loop The process of estimation, last moment changes, initiation of more projects and more problems is creating a vicious cycle in the entire project management world Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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The Problem Every project has at least three promises • Scope • Budget • Schedule Project Managers struggle to manage all the three. It is common to see that if Project Managers try to stick to schedule, the often go either over-budget or deliver less scope by cutting corners Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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The project faces the following problems • • • • • • •

Original due dates not met Too many changes Too often resources Necessary things not available on time There are fights about priorities between projects Budget overruns There is too much rework

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Ramifications arising out of the project problems • Very difficult to meet the original completion date, many times • There are budget overruns, at times • Compromises on scope are done many times • Cycle time keeps increasing, over time • Cycle time is too long • Many times, we struggle to manage the budget for the projects • There are too many changes in many projects • There is too much rework in many projects Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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Time estimates in Projects • Estimate is a range of possibilities in a project. • It is subject to uncertainty and variability.

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How safety in estimates gets wasted • Multi-tasking – working on more than one task during a period of time • Murphy’s law- if anything can go wrong it will go wrong • Student Syndrome – refers to phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before the expected completion time. • Parkinson’s law – Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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How safety in estimates gets wasted • Dependencies – The project activities have dependencies on various other activities on both sides

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Multi-tasking • Working on more than one task during a period of time • People generally believe that Multi-tasking is good and it helps them to show some progress • However Multi-tasking has many pitfalls

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Loss of time during the Multi-tasking The lost time during multi-tasking is spent into • Breaking concentration on the task one is working on • Picking up another task • Organising material related to the task • Remembering where you were last time you worked on that task • Establishing concentration on that task • Overcoming emotional inertia • Recreating the train of thought that got you to the current point on the task • Work on that task for some time and then its time to switch again Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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Possible consequences of Multi-tasking • Each project would take longer • Lot of time could get wasted in switching between the tasks • Due to frequent interruptions, the quality of the output could be low In terms of TOC, multi-tasking is an opportunity wasting behaviour

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Murphy’s law • If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong • Some popular mutations of the Murphy’s law • Left to themselves things tend to go from bad to worse • Things get worse under pressure • The other line always moves faster • The light at the end of the tunnel is another train coming in • Traffic is inversely proportional to how late you are

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Student’s Syndrome • Refers to phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before the expected completion time • The syndrome is a form of procrastination

• Students at the end of the project close to the same situation they started with, wishing they has more time as the new delayed date of completion approaches

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Parkinson’s law • Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion • Parkinson’s law doesn’t just apply to productivity but also applies to other aspects of life • Some generalisation of the law are • Data expands to fill the space available for storage • Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity • Expenditures rise to meet income • The smaller the function, the greater the management Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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Methods to defy the Parkinson’s law • Run against the clock• Make to do list • Prioritise • Estimate the time needed • Crust pests that eat into you productivity • Planning of the tasks • Shortening the time required for the tasks

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Dependencies • A delay in one step is passed, in full, to the next step • An advance made in one step is usually wasted • In sequential steps the deviations do not average out, delays accumulated while advances not

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What early finish never gets reported • There is little positive incentive to finish ahead of time • Early finisher may be accused on sandbagging the estimates • The future estimates are cut based on such history

• The next task may not be ready for an early start • Not being liked by colleague who are struggling to meet their due dates

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The learning • Safety – the protection of the performance of each step is wasted. Hence pitting safety at step level may not be a good idea. • Projects and Manufacturing – a project is like a production line, from a different frame of reference. In project work moves through the activity network • Managing Safety – Review the critical path and critical chain

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Critical Path and Chain Critical Path Critical path is the longest chain of dependent events, longest in time Critical Chain

Critical chain is the longest chain of tasks that considers both task dependencies and resource dependencies

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Early Start and Late Start Early Start If organisation starts all the paths at their earliest start, the project leader will have too much on his hands Late Start

If organisation starts a path on its late start, then the path doesn’t have any time slack which means that any delay on the path will also cause a delay in the project

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The Solution Managing the constraint – having identified the constraint, there is a need to exploit the constraint and then subordinate everything else to the constraint Project Buffer – Project buffer is created by pooling the safety that got built-in at task level while estimating

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The Solution Feeding Buffer – Feeding buffer are another type of time buffers is CCPM that are inserted whenever a non-critical chain task joins the critical chain Resource Buffer – It is an early warning or a wakeup call for the tasks that are on critical chain so that the next resource is aware of the priority

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Buffer Management • Buffer management is a future facing process and contains tracking and assessment of the consumption and replenishment of buffers during the project execution • It helps to identify potential problems much earlier than they would ordinarily be detected using traditional project management techniques.

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Methods of Buffer Management • Absolute method – The buffer is divided into three equal parts for the duration of the project, if consumption of the buffer is less than 1/3 of its original size, project health is considered OK • Relative Methods – it is important to catch with the possibility of major problems going too far too quickly.

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Methods of Buffer Management The method consists of the following aspects • Reducing bad multitasking • Full-kit preparation • Project planning • Staggering the projects • Execution Management

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CCPM and Five Focusing Steps The TOC is based on five focusing steps for global system performance• Identify the system’s constraint • Decide how to exploit the system’s constraints

• Subordinate everything else to the above decision • Elevate the system’s constraints • Return to step 1 if constraint has alleviated Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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CCPM culture • CCPM calls for a different culture and not adapting to the culture may lead to failure of CCPM. • CCPM helps an individual projects to do well, it can play a great role in Multi-project environment too • Encourages focusing and discourages bad multitasking • Commit due dates based on the staggering mechanism

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CCPM culture for Task Managers • Flow is the number one consideration. Ensure that the tasks are not stuck • Avoid bad-multitasking • Tasks are assigned and executed according to their priorities • Talk to your resources every day and offer help for faster completion of tasks whenever needed • Make preparations in advance for incoming tasks Chapter 6 – Critical Chain Project Management

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Summary • A great deal of new technology is not new knowledge. Innovation is perception • CCPM puts things together in an innovative way that could be beneficial to the practitioner • TOC applied in field of Project Management and came up with the Critical Chain Approach

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Summary There is a need to understand the following aspects prior to implementation of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) in any project • Rules of planning • Execution Rules • Features of CCPM • What CCPM provides • Pitfalls addressed by CCPM • Limitations of CCPM • Benefits of implementing CCPM

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