Project Management L2

Details of Critical Chain Project Management

This highly interactive, 1 day workshop introduces the TOC Solution for managing constraints in Projects. TOC (the Theory Of Constraints) is an "overall business philosophy" proposed by Eli Goldratt. Participants start by identifying the goal of their company and the measurements they use to tell if they are progressing toward that goal. Then a brief overview of TOC is given.

A series of exercises explore the effects of variation in task duration on the projected completion date of a project. The effects of path dependency when integration is involved (i.e. when multiple tasks must all be completed before the next step can begin), and the effects of resource dependency are clearly demonstrated.

The conflict of how to deal with high levels of uncertainty in projects is clearly defined and the solution is presented. It is NOT, as many project managers plead, to either increase the budget, extend the due date, or reduce the scope of the project. Rather, a new way to manage the safety that is already built into the project tasks time estimates is explained. Results from case studies are shared.