What is a Critical Chain? Project Management in Under 5

[@EschX]

As a product manager, I did notice the time to deliver the video was about 50% longer than was time promised in the title (JK: very simply put, well done)

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Mea culpa!

[@akshaykumarpatel4374]

Great Explanation but have one question, how do you plan second resource? If the first resource complete the task in 4 days (early than expected), should second resource should drop everything she is doing and continue on this project?

[@Onlinepmcourses]

If you are going to use critical chain - or critical path - scheduling, you need resources to have time flexibility. Where this is not the case, you need to build contingency into each task allocation and accept that this can create gaps in progress.

[@martinnobrega7837]

Very good! There is one concern about this method. Let's say Amit completes his task in 5 days, there won't be any problem as you still a 5 days buffer, but what about Becky and Chang allocations? You would have 4 mwd (man working days) without charging them to any project.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Every technique is useful in some circumstances, less useful in others, and not appropriate in some. If you need to pay a team for time available, rather than time worked - or you are unable to redeploy people onto other tasks, this may not be the right approach.

[@jdogjr9509]

From a management perspective, how would I explain this to the workers? Take Chang, for example, would I just disregard his worries and say "get it done in 4 days"? Wouldn't this advocate for lower quality work for him to meet the 4 days? I'm new to project mgmt so I want to understand this better.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Jason - god question. No - you don't disregard Chang's worries. His estimate is 4 days, so you are giving him that 4 days. But he has concerns that this could be compromised. So, you would reassure him that, if he does need it, you do have contingency you'll be able to give him. But his need to justify the contingency now will change his psychology. Now he knows that the extra time is not just his of right.

[@jdogjr9509]

@@Onlinepmcourses Sounds good. That makes sense. Thanks so much for the reply!

[@Onlinepmcourses]

@@jdogjr9509 You're welcome.

[@vikaskulkarni6334]

Excellent explanation! Thank you.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Thank you, Vikas.

[@kunalwaghmare143]

Excellent explanation, love your work !!

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Thank you! Cheers, Kunal!

[@ehsaanmiah4376]

What if there are issues that needs to be dealt with on one of the work streams immediatley (Chad) , do you apply the resource/feeder/project buffer to temporarily give chad one day to fix this or do they have to wait till the the 7 day buffer to get issues solved

[@Onlinepmcourses]

You have options, as you say. So, there is no theoretical 'right' answer... just the best answer in your situation. However, note that, if Becky and Chang need to hard-schedule their start dates, the critical chain approach may not work, because if Amit's task is delayed, you may lose time in the availability of Becky or Chang.

[@ehsaanmiah4376]

@@Onlinepmcourses so what i said can be applied to immediately give buffer time to chad or to wait till the 7 days, but the concern is mainly who to give attention to based on the resources the pm as if you help chas immediately the aggregate buffer time will reduce further causing issues with the pm Can you explain what you mean by giving pm flexibility (in ur video) if u add the buffer times together. Im kind of confused as u didnt go in depth what u meant by flexibility Thx again ur a life saver

[@Onlinepmcourses]

@@ehsaanmiah4376 By aggregating the contingency, the PM now has 7 days to use as they choose, to overcome delays and problems. It doesn't matter whose work is the problem, the PM can apply all 7 days to fixing the problem they encounter. If you don't need the extra time, you can either start the next task set early (if possible), undertake additional work, or relax.The PM is in control of the full buffer time because you have not allocated it to anyone else.

[@janlanghans4838]

Now I understand. Thanks for that.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

You're welcome - great to hear.

[@birminghamcitytraders8359]

unfortunately, I think this seems a little misleading. Goldratts simple critical chain method is cut and paste. So you cut the critical chain in half, and the half you cut is now the contingency. You've showed the variance in each task, which is good, but then summed up the variance and added that as contingency. So this is like someone giving you a pessimistic and likelihood estimate and then you using the difference as contingency, which I don't think is Goldratts method. Good Video though.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

I am highlighting the distinction between the critical path method which allocates contingency to each task (and therefore, to each performer) and the critical chain method, which does not, but creates a buffer for the chain, based on an estimate of the contingency needed. In practice, tis can be less than the sum of the individual contingencies if (and only if) the uncertainties are probabilistic.

[@Adam-ui3ot]

Superb.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Thank you.

[@aliviawalidonna]

That's awesome explanation sir..

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Thank you very much.

[@MrJeffmaze]

was interested but terrible audio.

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Thank you... a bit. Audio is hard, and this was an early video, so I have learned a lot and I think my newer videos are far better. I have also invested in better equipment. I apologise for my past sins and hope you'll forgive me.

[@family47977]

your audio is damaged

[@Onlinepmcourses]

Where, please?