Since Eli Goldratt’s book Critical Chain was published in 1997, there has been more and more interest in the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) method. The project management world seems to be ready for new ways of looking at old problems. The logic of the approach, coupled with some of the more publicized successes, have spread interest rapidly. And there have been some impressive successes, in many different kinds of projects.
For example:
* A large semiconductor manufacturer completed construction of a new plant in 13 months (compared to their benchmark of 29 months) while meeting spec and staying within 4% of the conventional budget.
* A small software developer applied CCPM to two crucial projects that were hopelessly behind schedule. To the astonishment of everyone, they delivered both projects on time.
* A large telecommunications company applied the approach and realized remarkable reductions in product development times. The company now has hundreds of project managers using the Critical Chain method.
Such reports clearly tell only a small part of the story. How did they do it? What were the critical factors in their successes? How can we duplicate those successes in our own companies? You may already know this, but a CCPM implementation is not much to fear. Think of it this way: “CCPM is a disciplined approach to managing the work we already do.”
The reality is, that the work of your firm does not change. CCPM is simply addition and subtraction.
You’re adding some new behaviors:
* Planning with different task estimates
* A slightly different approach to planning your projects (moving the buffer)
* Focusing execution effort on buffer penetration, instead of the telephone
You’re stopping others:
* Multi-tasking *
Expediting
* Planning without considering resource capacity
It seems more daunting than it really is. The risk of failure is very low. Even if you do a little or partial implementation, you get results.
The most significant thing in these implementations is not the technology, but managing the change; dealing with changing behavior in the face of an uncertain (in the minds of your team, anyway) outcome.
The technology is well understood, you can use a simple tool to get moving and later implement a more robust software solution.
The culture change for your business is moving to one where managers quickly respond to problems that may occur. It’s primarily a leadership challenge, rather than a technical one. So if you feel you have a handle on this, you can implement quite easily. If not, that’s the biggest battle you’ll fight.
For his entire career Mark Woeppel has been challenging the status quo in organizations, helping to make changes that matter. He is founder and president of Pinnacle Strategies, a consulting firm delivering Critical Chain CCPM implementation and training. He is the author of "Projects in Less Time: A Synopsis of Critical Chain".
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Critical Chain Project Management Reduces Project Lead Time
In spite of the fact that project task durations are often conservatively estimated to begin with, the presence of certain behaviors can cause them to increase even more. Critical Chain Project Management and project scheduling eliminates these behaviors and reduces project lead times.
Four behaviors make project durations longer than necessary.
Deliberate Padding
Once the people doing the work have conservatively estimated their tasks, the estimates are then passed through several layers of management where they are increased even more. Because managers feel they must protect their own performance, in many organizations task estimates are not treated as “estimates,” they are treated as “commitments.” People don’t want to be late on commitments, thus, they “pad” their estimates of how long a given task will take.
Student Syndrome
“Student syndrome” is a term that pertains to the psychology of procrastinating, something students are particularly prone to do. The analogy is to students who are going to take a test. When do they study for it? The night before! Why? Because they have much more important things to do! Often in projects, people start too late, using their safety time to work on other things, thinking they still have enough time to complete the task on time. After they begin the task, they run into problems, causing it to take even longer than the original padded estimate. The student syndrome causes longer durations because some of the time needed to complete a task is lost when it’s started too late or even when it’s started “just in time.” Then, Murphy causes the task to take even longer.
This “Murphy” is really two things: common cause process variation and special cause process variation. The two types of variation are not differentiated in the text, but in the implementation, must be treated differently. Common cause variation can be predicted and managed using the CCPM approach. Special cause variation must be treated separately in a risk analysis process.
Bad Multitasking
Multitasking occurs when an individual is working on more than one task at the same time. There are two kinds of multitasking: good and bad. Good multitasking is moving two or more tasks along together smoothly, such as catching up on customer calls while heading to a meeting. On the other hand, bad multitasking is anything but smooth. It’s the dropping of work on one task before it is finished in order to start another, only to stop and begin yet another task or go back to a previous task. All too often, people aren’t able to complete a task without getting pulled off onto something else, so “task time” grows each time a change is necessary. Goldratt wants you to see that the majority of task completion time is not used for the actual work, but is waiting or queue time. Tasks ready to be worked on cannot be worked on because there is no available resource. If the estimates are too long, during execution the actual time will grow even longer! No wonder projects consistently finish late and over budget. Parkinson’s Law Parkinson’s Law states the amount of work rises to fill the time available to complete it. In projects, it means that early task completions are never reported. Resources will continue to work on “improving” their task or will simply find something else to do until the due date of that task. In any case, the result to the project is that only the late finishes are recognized, so the only way a project timeline moves is out. These two behaviors, student syndrome and multi-tasking, have the same root cause - the lack of clear priorities. Student syndrome occurs when you believe the real due date is distant relative to the amount of time needed to complete the task, while bad multitasking is caused by not recognizing the real priority of tasks until they become late relative to the “need by” date. Why Do Projects Take So Long?
1. We add too much time to the original plan. We allow x amount of time, so it takes x amount of time.
2. Our resources multi-task, adding unnecessary work (additional setups) to the project
3. The Student Syndrome causes us to waste whatever buffer we did have, adding more time to our already generous estimates. 4. Parkinson’s Law blocks us from taking advantage of any favorable variation (tasks finishing early) the project experiences.
Implications for Management
Critical chain seeks to reduce / eliminate these behaviors, and therefore they are not planned for in the project. We can overcome deliberate padding, student syndrome, bad multitasking and Parkinson’s Law through better management and communication. By eliminating these behaviors from our projects, the time to finish the project is reduced.
After removing the safety time from these tasks, the critical path is shortened significantly. These are the reasons that projects managed using the critical chain method consistently finish in less time than projects that do not use this approach.
For his entire career Mark Woeppel has been challenging the status quo in organizations, helping to make changes that matter. He is founder and president of Pinnacle Strategies, a consulting firm delivering Critical Chain CCPM implementation and training. He is the author of "Projects in Less Time: A Synopsis of Critical Chain".
Four behaviors make project durations longer than necessary.
Deliberate Padding
Once the people doing the work have conservatively estimated their tasks, the estimates are then passed through several layers of management where they are increased even more. Because managers feel they must protect their own performance, in many organizations task estimates are not treated as “estimates,” they are treated as “commitments.” People don’t want to be late on commitments, thus, they “pad” their estimates of how long a given task will take.
Student Syndrome
“Student syndrome” is a term that pertains to the psychology of procrastinating, something students are particularly prone to do. The analogy is to students who are going to take a test. When do they study for it? The night before! Why? Because they have much more important things to do! Often in projects, people start too late, using their safety time to work on other things, thinking they still have enough time to complete the task on time. After they begin the task, they run into problems, causing it to take even longer than the original padded estimate. The student syndrome causes longer durations because some of the time needed to complete a task is lost when it’s started too late or even when it’s started “just in time.” Then, Murphy causes the task to take even longer.
This “Murphy” is really two things: common cause process variation and special cause process variation. The two types of variation are not differentiated in the text, but in the implementation, must be treated differently. Common cause variation can be predicted and managed using the CCPM approach. Special cause variation must be treated separately in a risk analysis process.
Bad Multitasking
Multitasking occurs when an individual is working on more than one task at the same time. There are two kinds of multitasking: good and bad. Good multitasking is moving two or more tasks along together smoothly, such as catching up on customer calls while heading to a meeting. On the other hand, bad multitasking is anything but smooth. It’s the dropping of work on one task before it is finished in order to start another, only to stop and begin yet another task or go back to a previous task. All too often, people aren’t able to complete a task without getting pulled off onto something else, so “task time” grows each time a change is necessary. Goldratt wants you to see that the majority of task completion time is not used for the actual work, but is waiting or queue time. Tasks ready to be worked on cannot be worked on because there is no available resource. If the estimates are too long, during execution the actual time will grow even longer! No wonder projects consistently finish late and over budget. Parkinson’s Law Parkinson’s Law states the amount of work rises to fill the time available to complete it. In projects, it means that early task completions are never reported. Resources will continue to work on “improving” their task or will simply find something else to do until the due date of that task. In any case, the result to the project is that only the late finishes are recognized, so the only way a project timeline moves is out. These two behaviors, student syndrome and multi-tasking, have the same root cause - the lack of clear priorities. Student syndrome occurs when you believe the real due date is distant relative to the amount of time needed to complete the task, while bad multitasking is caused by not recognizing the real priority of tasks until they become late relative to the “need by” date. Why Do Projects Take So Long?
1. We add too much time to the original plan. We allow x amount of time, so it takes x amount of time.
2. Our resources multi-task, adding unnecessary work (additional setups) to the project
3. The Student Syndrome causes us to waste whatever buffer we did have, adding more time to our already generous estimates. 4. Parkinson’s Law blocks us from taking advantage of any favorable variation (tasks finishing early) the project experiences.
Implications for Management
Critical chain seeks to reduce / eliminate these behaviors, and therefore they are not planned for in the project. We can overcome deliberate padding, student syndrome, bad multitasking and Parkinson’s Law through better management and communication. By eliminating these behaviors from our projects, the time to finish the project is reduced.
After removing the safety time from these tasks, the critical path is shortened significantly. These are the reasons that projects managed using the critical chain method consistently finish in less time than projects that do not use this approach.
For his entire career Mark Woeppel has been challenging the status quo in organizations, helping to make changes that matter. He is founder and president of Pinnacle Strategies, a consulting firm delivering Critical Chain CCPM implementation and training. He is the author of "Projects in Less Time: A Synopsis of Critical Chain".
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