57086 Contract and Project Management 23 David Sowden, The University of Hull
57086 Contract and Project Management23David Sowden, The University of Hull
2357086 Contract and Project Management
Goldratt’s Critical Chain
David Sowden, The University of Hull
History - Goldratt’s Critical ChainCritical Chain Project Management (CCPM) is a methodology for planning, executing and managing projects in single and multi-project environments, that puts the main emphasis on the resources required to execute project tasks.
Critical Chain Project Management was developed by Dr Eli Goldratt and was first introduced to the market in his Theory of Constraints book “Critical Chain’ in 1997.
It was developed in response to many projects being dogged by poor performance manifested in longer than expected durations, frequently missed deadlines, increased costs in excess of budget, and substantially less deliverables than originally promised.
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Goldratt. E.M. (1997), Critical Chain. United Kingdom: Avebury. ISBN-10: 0566080389
History - Goldratt’s Critical Chain
This is in contrast to the more traditional CPM and PERT methods, which emphasise task order and rigid scheduling.
A Critical Chain project network will tend to keep the resources levelly loaded, but will require them to be flexible in their start times and to quickly switch between tasks and task chains to keep the whole project on schedule.
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• Project failure - some causes– Not starting the task until the last moment
• (Student Syndrome)– Delaying (or pacing) completion of the task
• (Parkinson’s Law)– Cherry picking tasks– Management forces
ProblemsTHE BASICS
Addresses these issues in the following ways:
PlanningCritical Chain - longest chain (not Path) of dependent tasks
Estimations - recommends that task estimates are cut to half the length of a “normal” duration
Safety - ‘Buffers’ manage the impact of variation and uncertainty
Project BufferFeeding Buffer
Resources Buffer
Critical Chain Project Management (1)THE BASICS
Execution
Priorities - all project resources are given clear and aligned priorities relating to the ’health’ of the chain, and related to its associated buffer
Completion - ‘Roadrunner’ approach - when there is work available it should be progressed at the fastest possible speed (with compromising quality) until completed
Review
Buffer Management - amount of each buffer consumed indicates how the delay could effect project completion
Remaining Duration - tasks are monitored on their remaining duration, not their percentage complete.
Critical Chain Project Management (2)THE BASICS
TASK
Research the Critical Chain Project Management method