Critical Chain Project Management

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Critical Chain Project Management

Almost all projects fail in terms of timings and costs, but this is not because we don’t plan carefully enough, but rather because we plan to fail. Main reasons for wrong planning are:

1. We plan assuming our project will not change its scope, but it always does. You will never find a project where the scope never changed during the project phase. In the best case, the change was minor, but usually changes are significant enough to impact your project. The question is: if we know the plan will change, why do we plan assuming it will not?

2. Tasks end after the deadline or in the best case the last day: A project is made of tasks, and the probability of tasks ending before the deadline is zero, which means that the probability of a project ending by or before the deadline is also zero. This is due to 2 main factors:

a. Student’s syndrome: as students do, if I know I have enough time I’ll start my tasks after the project’s start of that tasks (i.e. if I have 10 days to perform a task but I know I can do it in 5 days, I’ll probably start day 3, 4 or 5, which means I’ll eliminate the safety stock from my tasks and may, in the best case, finish that task the last day (if nothing happens)

b. The last 20% is the slowest: when you look at how people advance in their project they usually get very fast to the 80% completion of a task but take much more time for the last mile. When people start early and get fast to the “80%”, they tend to relax or if they know that they may finish earlier they spend more time than needed improving details that are not really needed or just wait until the last day to end their tasks.

Additionally people don’t tend to finish earlier than expected because when timings for tasks are negotiated, managers push for less time and employees to have a Safety Stock as they don’t want to be punished for being late. If it happens that they finish a task earlier than planned they would be giving the message to their managers that they could have finished earlier and they won’t receive extra-time in their next negotiation”. Although one might think “this won’t happen to me and my project”, one should just look at the facts.

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