CHAITANYA TECHNOLOGIES

CCPM technique for project oriented organisations

Do I require a project management technique?

You really want to find a root cause which is limiting your system from growing.
Market is demanding shorter delivery periods.
Most of the projects get delivered after the first committed due date.
Many a times we are required to compromise on the content in order to attempt to deliver on time.
It is difficult to track progress of projects and get information of remaining work in terms of time and content.
Top management is wasting too much time on fire fighting rather than on developmental issues.
People down the line do not respond to the market needs the way top management wish they should.
Priorities are not clear.
Many times activities are left half done while taking new activities resulting in creating more fire fighting issues.
Delegation and owning up responsibilities by people is difficult.

If your firm faces many or most of these issues then, it is time you evaluate the application and benefits of this technique to your organisation…

Why CCPM?

‘The Theory of Constraints takes an approach different from extending the current project management method. It applies logic and the scientific method to focus on and resolve the core problem causing project failure

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) replaces critical path project management. It is the logical improvement of this earlier method that ensures project completion on time, cost, and to the intended scope. In a single word, CCPM causes you to focus on project success.
CCPM is an elegant way to plan and manage projects. It specifically manages the uncertainty. It has proven effective by reducing project lead times, and by reliably completing the projects earlier than these reduced lead times. Consequently, scope and cost controls improve.

Once you see it, it is just common sense. It is simple. Therefore, it is elegant.’

What is CCPM?

The CCPM implementation technique based on TOC, comprises of three major methodologies –

Critical Chain is the TOC methodology for scheduling individual projects. With the objective of completing projects in the shortest possible time, the Critical Chain methodology focuses on identifying and exploiting the longest chain of resource and activity dependencies, and then subordinating all other resources and activities to that chain.

Drum Scheduling is the TOC methodology for scheduling multiple projects. The Drum identifies the most heavily constrained resource within an organization. The Drum Scheduling methodology focuses on identifying and exploiting the most constrained resource (the Drum), and then scheduling (staggering) all projects onto that resource, based the its availability and project due-date priorities.

Buffer Management is the TOC methodology for controlling projects. This methodology focuses on predicting the possible buffer penetrations based on the latest task information, providing Senior Managers with reliable and timely information that can be used to accurately adjust project execution.

What benefits does a Critical Chain project management provide to your project organisation?

Projects will be completed faster.
The project team's morale and effectiveness will improve because they will be operating in an environment that is comfortable with uncertainty and that avoids micro management.
Project managers, resource managers, and executives will have a simple, highly effective macro-level method for evaluating project performance and taking proactive resource allocation decisions using green-yellow-red buffer management.
Executives will have an effective tool for making decisions on projects based upon project priority and organizational capacity using the project synchronization capabilities.
Everyone in the system will get common priorities in line with satisfying the customer
System shall provide right evaluation criterion to enable sign better contracts with vendors so as to motivate them to act inline with system priorities.
Senior management time will be freed up for more developmental activities rather than fire fighting activities.

To achieve the above benefits, you need to establish a total project environment that integrates both the human behavioural elements and the methods into an effective operating unit. The human side requires everyone, from management to the project team, to understand and buy-in to the concepts.

Differences between CCPM and Traditional Project Management

Traditional Project Management	CCPM	Benefits through CCPM
Schedules worst-case task durations	Schedules average task durations	Task times do not collect safety time. Risk, stress, and effort are shared equally amongst all tasks & resources. People can see what's really consuming the elapsed time.
Protects individual tasks with safety time	Protects overall project completion with buffers.	Safety time is conserved and used most wisely over the entire project. Focus is placed on what is most important to the customer: speedy deliverables
Emphasizes task progress	Emphasizes project progress	Events that slow the project are constantly in the schedule spotlight. People stay focused on the problems.
Starts tasks ASAP	Starts tasks when they need to start.	Critical and limited resources are not plugged up with non-critical tasks which block & slow critical tasks. Use of bottleneck resources is based on priority
Starts and finishes tasks at scheduled start and finish times.	Starts tasks as soon as predecessors are done, finishes tasks as quickly as possible	Project is managed and implemented like a relay race. If you are carrying the baton, just finished carrying, or getting ready to carry it next, your activities are tightly monitored, controlled, and managed; all others are of lesser priority.
Create resource contention	Resolves resource contentions explicitly.	Bottleneck resource is identified. All users of critical resource are identified up-front and conflicts resolved. Project Managers watch only the critical resource
Create multi-tasking	Minimizes multi-tasking by setting priorities.	The terrible cost of multi-tasking is exposed. All personnel are trained on "bad multi-tasking".
Reacts to uncertainty by changing priorities, expediting, and creating a new schedule	Manages uncertainty proactively by monitoring impact of events on buffer consumption.	Project schedules and their priorities stay consistent. The impact of one project on all other projects is minimized. . People feel benefits from CCPM; they are more productive, less frustrated, involved. Their contributions & efforts matter. Morale climbs.