In an earlier posting, I explained that in traditional project
management (i.e. CPM) project progress is tracked by calculating the percentage
of individual tasks completed and then comparing that percentage against the
due date. To me the problem with this
method is that we aren’t considering the estimated durations that are left to
complete. As a result, it’s nearly
impossible to know exactly how much time is remaining to complete the
project. Using this method to track
progress, it’s not uncommon to see 90 % of a project completed relatively
quickly only to see the remaining 10 % take just as long. In fact, looking at the number or percentage
of tasks completed instead of how much of the critical path has been completed
only serves to give a false sense of conformance to the schedule. If all task durations were of equal length,
this method might work, but they are not.
CCPM measures the progress of a project much differently and in so
doing allows the project to make valuable use of early finishes. Critical chain uses something called a Fever Chart which is simply a run chart
of % of the Critical Chain complete versus % of Project Buffer consumed. Figure 10 is an example of such a chart. In this chart we see that approximately 55 %
of the critical chain has been completed while only 40 % of the project buffer
has been consumed. At this rate we can
conclude that this project is slightly ahead of schedule.
The green, yellow and red areas of the fever chart are visual
indicators of how the project is progressing.
If the data point falls within the green area of the chart, the project
is progressing well and may even finish early.
If the data point falls into the yellow zone, there is cause for concern
and plans should be developed to take action if necessary. Vertical rises indicate that buffer is being
consumed at too fast a rate relative to how the project is progressing. If a data point falls into the red zone, then
the plan we developed must now be executed.
But even if the entire amount of project buffer is consumed at the
completion of the project, the project is still on time and not late.
In addition to using the fever chart, I also recommend calculating a
project index by dividing the percent of critical chain completed into the
percent of the project buffer consumed.
As long as this ratio is 1.0 or less, then the project will come in on-time
or early. In our example this ratio would be 40% divided by 55% or 0.727. This ratio says that this project is
progressing nicely with no concern for the project being late.
With most CCPM software, we can also see a portfolio view of the fever
chart that tells us the real time status of all projects in the system. Figure 2 is an example of this view and one
can see at a glance that four (4) of the projects (Projects 1, 4, 5 and 6) need
immediate attention (they are in the red zone), two (2) projects (Projects 3
and 8) need a plan developed to reduce the rate of buffer consumption (yellow
zone) and two (2) projects (Projects 2 and 7) are progressing nicely (in the
green zone). Having this view enables
the Project Manager to see at a glance where to focus his or her efforts. It is important to understand that just
because a project enters the red zone, does not mean that the project will
automatically be late. It only means
that if prompt action isn’t taken to reduce the buffer consumption rate, the
project could be late.
Figure 2
The net effect of CCPM will always result in a
significant decrease in cycle time with a corresponding increase in the
throughput rate of completed projects using the same level of resources. In fact, ii is not unusual for project cycle
times to be reduced by as much as 40 to 50%! These cycle time reductions and
throughput increases translate directly into improved on-time delivery of
projects as well as significant revenue increases.
The key to success using CCPM revolves around
utilization of the true subject matter experts (SME’s). That is, by developing a core team comprised of 70-80% employees actually executing projects
(i.e. SME’s) and permitting them to develop the ultimate design solution, the
resulting implementation will be believed, owned and used by the people performing
the work. This ownership translates
directly into making sure the solution will work. Without this level of involvement and
approval authority to develop the applied action plans, CCPM will simply not be
as successful as it could or should be.
Another key to successful project management
application are a series of regular meetings intended to escalate and resolve
any problems that surface during the project execution. These include daily “walk-arounds” by the
Project Manager with the SME’s to determine the progress of the project so that
problems can be surfaced and escalated if the Project Manager cannot resolve
them him or herself. In addition, I also
recommend that each week or two there must be what is referred to as an
Operation’s Review in which each individual project is reviewed for progress by
the leadership team. Again, if problems
and issues need to be escalated to keep the project on schedule, leadership
must play this vital role.
Clearly, Critical Chain Project Management has
demonstrated its superiority over the predominant Critical Path Method in a
variety of industry settings with reported cycle time improvements in the
neighborhood of 40 to 50%. And with
project completion rates above 90%, it is no wonder why organizations that rely
on project completions as their revenue source are flocking to CCPM. Organizations like the Department of Defense
(DoD) where rapid maintenance of aircraft and other military vehicles is paramount
to success, software development companies have had incredible success using
CCPM versus CPM. So if your organization
is a project based one with multiple projects, CCPM will take you to a new
level of success.
In my next posting we’ll look at why it’s
important not to push more projects into your organization and why staggering
projects is a better way. In other
words, sometimes in order to speed up, we must slow down.
Bob Sproull
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