Frequently Asked Questions
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Q:
What is Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)?
A:
Critical Chain Project
Management is the name of the breakthrough approach to scheduling and
managing projects developed by Eli Goldratt in 1990. A significant advance
over PERT/ CPM, which has been the dominant approach to PM for more than 50
years, CCPM addresses some of the most damaging phenomena in managing
projects, including the cascade effect, Parkinson’s law, and multi-tasking,
which drive projects to miss delivery dates, exceed budgets, and take longer
than they should. What makes the approach so successful is its four
essential elements.
1. Schedules
are level-loaded based on the limitations of available resources
(constraints). This produces the “critical chain”—the longest set of
sequential tasks (due to both task dependency, and resource
contention)—which dictates the shortest overall project duration.
2. Time
buffers are inserted at strategic locations in the plan—at the end of the
critical chain and at every point where a task intersects the critical
chain—to absorb the adverse effects of uncertainty without damaging
performance. To create the buffers, some of the slack time built into tasks
in planning is repositioned to these strategic locations.
3. Projects
are “pipelined” or staged based on resource availability to combat the
cascade effect of shared resources across projects and create viable
multi-project plans.
4. Buffer
management is used to dynamically set task priorities in execution. As
uncertainty changes the original plan, tasks are prioritized based on the
buffer burn rate (the amount of buffer consumed vs. the percent of the work
complete). Tasks with critical buffer penetration take precedence over those
with lower burn rates.
Q:
What kind of benefits would I see with CCPM?
A:
CCPM is enabling
organizations to complete more projects faster with the same or fewer
resources. The typical business results realized are:
-
On-time completion of projects nearing 100% (with no reduction in scope)
-
Project durations reduced 20-60%
-
Volume of projects increased 25-100%
In terms of
operational benefits, companies are reporting:
-
Better visibility of risk and faster overall response to problems
-
Clearer, more stable priorities
-
Stronger focus and more effective use of resources
- Less overall
administration effort, with better, more up to date information
Q:
I get the feeling that CCPM is still very new, how old is it and are many
companies using it?
A:
CCPM
is new. The application dates only to 1990, the first book on it was
published in 1997 (Goldratt’s Critical Chain) and it is only since 1997-98
that any serious implementations have been done. Nevertheless it is far from
unproven and the adoption rate is very high, with both large and small
organizations. There are currently more than 100 stable implementations
around the world, at organizations such as: US Navy, US Air Force,
Pharmacia/Pfizer, Intel, Philips, Siemens, Lucent, Seagate, FMC, NASA,
Bosch, Johnson Controls, Medtronic, Israel Defense Forces, Harris
Semiconductor, Boeing, and many more.
Q:
What changes are required to make CCPM work?
A:
For most
organizations CCPM requires a shift in three areas:
1. Measurement-
Common measures like earned value focus on completing any work on a
project—whether it is on the Critical Chain or not. This drives the
completion of “easier tasks” often at the expense of ones more critical to
overall project completion. Similarly a focus on task completion dates
encourages task estimates to be padded, reduces the urgency to start a task
when it becomes available, and provides no protection for the project when a
delay does occur. CCPM works when an organization manages according to its
buffers and evaluates overall performance based on the rate at which
resources consume or recover the buffer.
2. Information-
The information companies need to make CCPM work is different from
conventional methods. While many conventional systems can level load
resources, none has the facility to place buffers appropriately, or to
provide dynamic information regarding buffer burn rates. There are a very
small number of systems that even claim to be able to handle these
challenges.
3. Decision
processes- To get different results, different decisions must be made—which
means engraining new processes in the organization. These processes can be
well defined and readily taught to key managers.
Q:
I have often heard that CCPM requires a “culture change” in the
organization, is this true?
A:
We all know how
difficult it is to change the culture of an organization, it takes years and
plenty of blood, sweat and tears. While some approaches to CCPM may try to
change the culture of the organization, or require significant numbers of
managers to become “Jonahs,” this does not have to be the case. Today, for
instance, most companies do not have good information for determining task
priorities—especially between tasks on different projects. Imagine how a
manager would react to being able to see the relative buffer burn rates for
all of his tasks? CCPM provides benefits to everyone involved in projects,
and everyone who must provide information—their jobs get easier and they are
more successful. It is essential to define clearly the precise changes need
to take place in your organization, by which people, and to map those
changes in advance. By focusing the change process around these essential
elements and providing a fast time-to-benefit, the organization can quickly
overcome the obstacles to change without the pain of culture change.
Q:
I don’t think our organization is ready for CCPM, can we implement
without having basic PM skills?
A:
CCPM does require
organizations to have certain basic skills to be successful, including how
to define project tasks and networks, the ability to match skills to tasks,
and the discipline to enter schedule updates. What is interesting however is
that the implementation process and timeline for CCPM does not change
significantly whether the organization is far advanced in PM, or just
starting out. Organizations that want to start first with PM basics find
later when they go to CCPM that much of what they have been doing will need
to change—such as how to create effective project plans. For organizations
with little or no culture or experience in PM, the implementation covers the
same essential skills, with no need to overcome past habits.
Q:
How long does
it take to implement CCPM?
A:
Naturally this varies
based on the size of the organization and the complexity and number of
projects involved. TOCC-led implementations typically have the organization
up and running with CCPM in 3 months or less. This means that schedules are
in place for all projects, the teams are trained, measures in place and CCPM
is guiding the decision process. The implementation may continue for an
additional 3 to 6 months to fully transfer all of the most advanced skills
required and/or to coach managers through one or two cycles of projects. A
successful implementation is one that delivers significant bottom line and
operational results while creating self-sufficiency in the organization in
three critical areas: planning, execution, and process improvement.
Q:
Our challenge is less managing projects, than managing resources. How can
CCPM help with that?
A:
We
feel that this is the central issue in managing projects—how to plan and
deploy resources properly. CCPM is the only resource-oriented approach for
managing projects. The CCPM methodology provides for managing resources more
effectively by: creating resource leveled project plans, highlighting
constraints and how they affect project delivery, enabling dynamic
prioritization of tasks within and across projects, and, by providing
forward visibility of resource loads. Managers need this information to
match resources to work loads, to set sound priorities, to quote realistic
deliveries, and to know when to take corrective action. We feel that without
effective resource management, effective project management is impossible.
Q:
Where do buffers come from and how do we size them?
A:
It is easy to think that
buffers work because they are simply “added time” placed at the end of the
work tasks. This is not the case. CCPM plans are almost always shorter in
duration—including the buffer times—than conventional plans. The time for
buffers is created by removing the inherent slack time that has been built
into individual task estimates. When task estimates are given for completing
work, these are nearly always based on a high-confidence duration for the
task—perhaps 80-90% certainty that it will be completed in the time. This is
particularly true in organizations where people are measured or managed
based on completing their tasks on time. By moving much of this time from
the individual tasks to the buffers, more than adequate time can be “found”
to provide the buffers, and still have something left over for reducing the
overall project duration. Buffers should never be less than 25% of the time
of the critical chain, and are typically sized between 30% and 50% of the
critical chain duration.
Q:
What are the available software products for
supporting CCPM and must we use one to be successful?
A:
CCPM was first developed
as a methodology in 1990, but it wasn’t until 1996-1997 that the first
attempts at implementation were tried. This coincided with the first
availability of software to support CCPM. It is our experience that the
complexity of project environments, and the high-level of inherent
uncertainty in projects make it virtually impossible to have an effective
implementation without the use of software. For instance, an essential
element of CCPM is greatly reducing the multi-tasking (stopping one task
mid-stream to start another, more urgent one). To accomplish this it is
essential to be able to determine task priorities at any given point in
time. Without a software tool, this is nearly impossible to do in all but
the simplest of settings.
There are currently three software tools which claim to support CCPM:
Concerto, ProChain, and Scitor. No other products can even begin to address
the challenges of CCPM today, including Primavera, Microsoft Project, CA, or
SAP. TOCC does not have any interest in any of these companies, nor do we
reap a commission on any sale. It is our experience, however, from working
with each of them, that Concerto is far and away the superior product, and
the only one that delivers all of the functionality we consider essential to
making CCPM work—especially in multi=project environments. |
