Theory of Constraints (TOC) - Application for Projects
Last updated on 2015-09-22
About the Book
This eBook discusses the problems faced by Projects organizations and shows the causes that are responsible for these problems.
It explains in detail, TOC’s application for Project Management i.e. Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM).
The eBook contains several Figures, Tables, Diagrams, Pictures, Charts, Graphs, examples, Quotes, Exercises and Games as appropriate. Most chapters are summarized in “Points to Ponder” at the end of certain chapters.
The eBook has some Multiple Choice Self-assessment questions. These questions help you to assess yourself the knowledge gained by you by reading this eBook.
This eBooks series is an excellent guide for those who want to learn TOC and its applications.
Table of Contents
Copyright Information 4
This book is dedicated to 5
Preface 6
I am thankful to… 8
Introduction 9
Some statistics 10
The Problem 11
The Golden Triangle and the Golden Hexagon 11
Time Estimates in Projects 14
How Safety In Estimates Gets Wasted?19
Multitasking 19
What is Multitasking? 19
What is the common belief? 20
What does it mean practically? 20
Why Multitasking is bad? 23
Is there anything like Good Multitasking? 24
A clarification 25
A game to imbibe the concept 25
Murphy’s Law 27
Students Syndrome 29
Parkinson’s Law 31
How to defy Parkinson's Law 33
Dependencies 35
Task Duration Variability and Resource Dependency 37
Starting non-critical paths on their early or late start 42
And there are some more ways… 43
Yes, there are some more ways by which the safety embedded in task estimates gets wasted: 43
The Vicious Cycle 44
The Learning 45
Safety 45
Projects and Manufacturing 45
Managing Safety 45
Critical Path and Critical Chain 48
Critical Path 48
Critical Chain – an Improvement over Critical Path 49
Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) 50
The Solution 52
The Constraint 52
Buffers52
How to use safety / buffer? 55
Project Buffer 55
Feeding Buffer 56
Resource Buffer 57
Guidelines 59
Guidelines for creating a Critical Chain (CC) 59
Guidelines for creating Buffers and setting priorities 59
Buffer Management 61
How Much Buffer Do We Need? 61
What Buffer Management does? 61
What do we measure during project execution? 62
CCPM in Multi-Project Environment 67
Reducing Bad Multitasking 69
Freezing projects 69
Accelerating the project completion 71
Full-kit Preparations 73
Project Planning 75
What is the “Normal” Practice in Planning Phase? 75
What is the Resultant “Normal” Practice during Execution Phase? 75
Creating Plan / Sequence / Schedule 75
Constructing a “Good Enough” Schedule 81
Build the network 81
Create Critical Chain Schedule 82
Schedule Analysis 83
Validate 83
Analyze Critical Chain 83
Analyze Project Buffers 83
Staggering the projects85
Execution Management and Control 88
Measurements89
Measure the Buffers 89
Manage with the Buffers 89
Using Buffer Report 90
Task Management 90
Using Buffer Report for Managing Supply Chain92
Project Control93
Managing the Performance of Contractors 94
CCPM and Five Focusing Steps 97
Beware of Your Policies – The Way We Work Here 99
CCPM Culture 100
CCPM Culture for TOP Management (including Delivery Heads, Resource Heads and Function Heads): 100
CCPM Culture for Project Managers, Resource Managers and Function Managers: 101
CCPM Culture for Task Managers 102
CCPM Culture for Resources 103
Summary 104
Rules for Planning 105
Execution Rules 105
Features of CCPM 106
CCPM provides106
Pitfalls addressed 106
CCPM does not106
Benefits of CCPM 106
Self-assessment questions 108
eBooks published by Rajeev Athavale 111
Learner’s Guides 111
Article Repository 112
TOC Applications: Implementation Guidance for Small and Medium Size Enterprises 113
Bibliography 114
Bundles that include this book
About the Author
I am a TOC consultant. I teach and implement TOC. I have been studying and trying TOC over a decade.
I am an ardent fan of ToC. For past few years, reading about TOC has moved me from “I am impressed” to “I like it” to “I want to know more…”. I did not realize when it became a passion for me. Now, I eat, sleep, walk and breath TOC.
By sheer accident, I came across the famous book “The Goal” and that changed my life. I went on reading Goldratt’s next book “Its not luck” and thereafter I read all his books. Fortunately, Internet is a great source of information and it opened up the wealth of knowledge for me.
As I did more and more research on TOC, I felt the need for crystallizing and documenting the knowledge that I gained. I created my own training material and conducted a two-day workshop on TOC in my company. Thanks to Internet, I kept on enriching my Training material.
Apart from my own consulting, I had the opportunity to work on a large TOC implementation called "Viable Vision". The project was implemented by Goldratt Consulting.
As a part of the project, I had undergone training from various experts from Goldratt Schools such as Oded Cohen, Mickey Granot, Philip Wiljoen, Eli Schragenheim, Humberto Baptista, Kiran Kothekar and Martin Powell.
Apart from the training and on the job experience, study of Goldratt’s webcast, Strategy & Tactics Trees, TOC Insights, TOC Simulators (GSIM, MICSS, PM SIM, and Distribution), TOC Games and TOC SLPs have helped me to enrich his TOC related knowledge.
My passion for learning, experimenting, sharing knowledge and achieving results continues…
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