Saving time with CCPM

Saving time with CCPM
Critical Chain Project Management
Freek de Ruiter
Presentatie nog te geven
xx juni 2013

© Kwantitijd BV 2013 All rights reserved No. 2Saving time with Critical Chain Project Management
Why do we want to save time ?

© Kwantitijd BV 2013 All rights reserved
Product life cycles are getting shorter
Improving due date performance and reducing lead time enlarges financial benefits
Finishing a project ASAP means:
• Reduced Time to Market
• Cost reduction
CCPM promises:
• 80% due date performance in a portfolio
• 25% lead time reduction of a project
No. 3Saving time with Critical Chain Project Management
Why saving time (and money!) with
CCPM ?

Freek de Ruiter is a member of the NL TOC Network and has become a passionate and
ambitious expert on Critical Chain Project Management.
Working as Time Management Consultant for his own company, he specializes on the
domains planning, scheduling and tracking
Presented to you by Freek de Ruiter

• What is CCPM?
• Improving portfolio performance
• How does CCPM work?
• Plenty of time to save
• CCPM planning and execution
• Multi-project CCPM
• When or why will CCPM not work
• Results
Agenda

• An IT development method like Agile/SCRUM
• An improvement method like Lean and SixSigma
• A project management method like PRINCE 2
• A program management method like MSP
• Just a planning “trick”
• A way to solve all your problems (“Haarlemmer oil” / “Silver Bullit”)
What CCPM is not:

The elaboration of the TOC body of thought on project management:
TOC = Theory of Constraints
Books by Eli Goldratt:
• The goal
• Critical Chain
• Inherent Simplicity  The Choice
Books by Robert Newbold
• Project Management in the Fast Lane
• The Billion Dollar Solution
What is CCPM ?
Isaac Newton:
“Nature is
exceedingly
simple and
harmoniously
within itself”

The 5 focussing steps:
0. Define the system
1. Identify the constraint (the resource or policy that prevents the organization from
obtaining more of the goal)
2. Decide how to exploit the constraint (get the most capacity out of the constrained
process)
3. Subordinate all other processes to above decision (align the whole system or
organization to support the decision made above)
4. Elevate the constraint (make other major changes needed to break the constraint)
5. If, as a result of these steps, the constraint has moved, return to step 1, don’t let
inertia become the constraint)
What is TOC ?

Clear thinking requires these starting points (convictions? beliefs?):
1. Never say I know, it will obstruct you from gaining more knowledge
2. If confronted with something that looks complex, remember that everything is
simple
3. If confronted with something that looks a contradiction, remember that it will
turn out to be in harmony (a paradox?), if you are willing to think hard and long
enough
4. Do not blame someone or something else, if you really feel you need someone to
blame, blame yourself
What is TOC ? (continued)

“Doing the right things right”
1) Select the right (order of) projects:
“Front end” PPM: portfolio alignment with company business objectives, is not
covered in this presentation, but probably is the most import factor in improving
portfolio performance
2) Execute the projects as efficiently as possible:
• By providing max. throughput of the system using “Multi-project” CCPM
• This flow is the one and only consideration!
• If you manage to keep projects on time and budget, you do not need to change or
stop projects (based on predictions Earned Value Analysis can provide)
Improving portfolio performance

• Plan projects with buffers
• Reducing work in progress (WIP)
• Active execution of projects
• Monitoring the right points of attention
• Unambiguous priority system
“Plan tasks as late as possible to avoid unnessecary work in progress, but monitor
the start of planned tasks and the finish of tasks in progress daily, by means of the
buffer penetration mechanism.”
How does CCPM work ?

• Safety too high
• Tasks start too late
• Tasks end too late
• Productivity loss of bad multi-tasking
• Waiting on decisions
Time to save

Project member estimates: minimum of 3 days work and tells his team lead: “ready in
a week!”
Another project member estimates for a follow up action a week too
Team lead schedules the activities and tells his project manager that he needs 12
days, to prevent that delay of the 1st activity causes delay of the 2nd activity.
Project manager reports to the steering committy to count on 3 weeks for that
cluster, because before the activities can start first another cluster……
Safety too high (addition to Eli’s
heritage)

A deadline influences in a negative way
3 days work? 5 days available?
I can postpone working on this task, which I do not like to start, to the day after
tomorrow!
On day 4 Murphy strikes: 2 days extra needed!
Possibly increasing the lead time of the project
Tasks start too late (student
syndrome)

Time planned will always be filled with work
3 days work? 5 days available?
I immediately start working on this task that I like to work on
Ready after 3 days, no reward for being ready, adding all kinds of “nice to haves” for
2 days
Loss of productivity and possibly waisting an opportunity to reduce the lead time of
the project
Tasks end too late (Parkinsons law
No. 1)

Productivity loss of bad multi-tasking
Task A
Task B
Task C
Tasks assigned
to person
3 days
3 days
3 days
Ideally: Task A Task B Task C
3 days 3 days 3 days
OK? B BA AC C
6 days
6 days
6 days
In reality
minimally
BBA AC C
7 days
7 days
7 days
Productivity
loss
Shift of end
date task A
Shift of end
date task B

• Not much space in management agendas
• Disagreement on priorities
But on top of that:
• Menzo de Muinck Keizer: Managers miss information because the decision making process is
not enough known to the non-decisionmakers
Consequences:
• More waiting on decisions
• More loss of productivity
• More increase of the project lead time
• More loss of motivation
Looking back in retrospective, any decision, always based on the knowledge at a certain time,
could possibly better have been replaced by another, unfortunately never enabling a 100%
certain analysis of the consequences of that replacement
Waiting on decisions (addition to Eli’s
heritage)

No. 20© Kwantitijd BV 2013 All rights reserved
Start with basic planning on skill level
Saving time with Critical Chain Project Management

Critical Path

Resource allocation of individuals

Overallocation!

Also overallocation in the skill based planning

Overallocation solved, but multitasking means more
work!

Resource leveling can cause switching more than once

Multi-tasking eliminated, resource contention removed,
ready to apply CCPM planning

Critical Chain is not Critical Path

• Reducing WIP
How does CCPM work ? (repeated)

• Only with buffers and daily monitoring setbacks can be compensated by pleasant
surprises
• Where protection needed?
• How much?
Plan projects with buffers

Step 1:
Remove 50% safety from the individual tasks

Step 2:
Add buffers with 50% of the removed safety

Step 3:
Start non-critical tasks ALAP

• Reducing WIP

Result of the 3 CCPM planning steps

Cautious?
Result of removing only 25% safety from tasks

Very cautious?
Result of not removing any safety at all

50% - 50%  50% approach is proven best CCPM practice in
a multiproject arena!

• Reducing WIP

• Resource allocation of individuals
• Buffer management
• The following scenario is an example of possible events
Execution

Start of project on 9/11/09

Monday 16/11: Analist 1 reports status finished with 4 hours
extra work done, Designer 1 reports 4 hours extra work to do.
Progress in week 1

Analyst 2 and Designer 2 report work finish conform schedule,
Developer reports having started 1 day later because of sickness.
Progress in week 1

Feedbuffer consumption 50% with branche 80% complete,
Projectbuffer consumption 13% with Critical Chain 30% complete.
Progress in week 1

Monday 23/11: Designer 1 reports work finished conform new schedule,
Developer reports finished product 2 with 8 hours extra work done and 16
extra hours to be done on product 1.
Progress in week 2

Feedbuffer consumption 50% with branch 100% complete,
Projectbuffer consumption 50% with Critical Chain 50% complete
Progress in week 2

• Reducing WIP

Developer reports 1 day later “probably ready middle next week”, which
means projectbuffer consumption 75% with Critical Chain 50% complete.
Progress in week 2 + 1 day

Projectmanager helps Developer with problem and skipping
superfluous work , project buffer consumption back on 50%
Progress in week 2 + 1 day

Monday 30/11: Developer reports progress according to new schedule,
project buffer consumption 50% with Critical Chain 75% complete
Progress in week 3

Monday 7/12, integration test finished with 8 hours extra
work, acceptance test starting today.
Progress in week 4

Wednesday 9/12: Acceptance test finished after 2 days,
project buffer consumption of 66,67%
Progress in week 5

Project finished before deadline

Project finished in less hours than baselines

Project finished under budget

Requirements for a succesful implemenation:
1. Enthusiastic, professional, believing Project Manager
2. Co-operating, open-minded team members
3. Not too much external dependencies
4. Reliable enough estimates
5. “Full Kit” preparations
6. Tooling
CCPM in a single project

Staggering:
• Single CCPM planned projects
• Projects in order of finish date (or other priority)
• Indentify drum tasks/resources (= key resources)
• Remove resource contention of key resources on drum tasks
• Replan all tasks of all projects before and after tasks of key resources, but only
move the buffers of the newly released project
Priorities:
Only an algorithm can determine the right priority of the tasks and projects in
execution
Multi project CCPM planning

Single CCPM planned projects

Staggering step 1:
Identify drum tasks/resources

Staggering step 2: Remove resource contention of key
resources on drum tasks

Staggering step 3: Replan all tasks of all projects
before/after tasks of key resources

• Project organization with competence pools:
• Taskmanagers are working for more than 1 project
• Resources are working for a taskmanager
• Unambigous priority rules
• Highest priority for task which causes highest penetration of the projectbuffer of the
project with the highest priority
• Highest priority for project with highest penetration of its projectbuffer in relation to its
completeness of the Critical Chain
• The project waiting with the highest priority (decided by humans, instead of the above
priority algorithm for projects in execution) in the pipeline is only to be started when the
drum assignments of one of the projects in execution is finished
Multi-project CCPM execution

• Reducing WIP

Highest prority for which project ?
T1 T2 T3
PBProject W18: 60% penetration
T1
PB Project W14: 90% penetration
T2

Overview of portfolio (fever chart)
W18

Frans Jan Buters: “do not wait for drum assignments of a project to be finished, but
simply wait to release a new project until another one is ready”
Michel Stijlen: “indeed: ‘one out, one in’ but also use, when choosing which project
to release, the forecasted resource load as an extra criterium do decide upon
priority”
Jan Willem Tromp: “do not stagger and reschedule, release a new project whenever
the CEO wants, but if the forecasted resource load predicts expected delays beyond
the buffers: pause another project”
Kees Vermeulen: “stagger and reschedule based on more identified key resource
groups”
Jan Willem Tromp: “do not focus on due date performance and lead time reduction
directly, but focus on output improvement of resources”
Harry Barendse: “consider Agile/SCRUM sprints as tasks in a CCPM planning, while
scheduling the rest of the tasks in the planning as well”
Other additions to Eli’s heritage

• Plan projects with buffers (feed buffers and project buffers)
• Reducing WIP (starting tasks ALAP)
• Monitoring the right points of attention (with buffermanagement)
Every day:
How much time is needed to complete this task in progress?
No progress? Where is this task waiting on?
How does CCPM work ? (summary)

Buffermanagement is the key element
Okay Plan Act
0% 33% 66% 100%
Percentage Use of Buffer
Percentage (Non) Critical Chain to go
100% 67% 33% 0%
Traffic light status Buffers in combination with %-CC to go
x x
?

No wait time on the Critical Chain
Only safety where it is needed
Do not question the priority algorithm
Right mindset
Preferred implementation for single-project CCPM:
• Estimates and safety in consultation with team members (e.g. tasks have only 50%
chance to finish on time)
• Reward the right performance (which is not always finishing your task on the time
estimated on a 50% chance to do that!)
Preferred implementation for multi-project CCPM:
• Take 50% safety from tasks, put 50% of this safety in buffers
• Consider portfolio performance as achievement of all the resources
Focus on the project/portfolio, not
on the tasks

• If you keep believing “this is too good to be true”
• With the attitude “not invented here”
• Because companies generally do not want/need to change
• Not enough sense of urgency
• If there is no business need for project due date performance improvements and
project lead time reductions
• Because CCPM needs professional planning practises to start with
• No reliable enough estimates
• No “Full Kit” preparations
• No adequate tooling
• Too slow implementation process
• Not enough committment from management
When or why does CCPM not work ?

Saving time and money:
Projects theoretically always ready on due date or earlier
On-site observed average due date performance: 80%
Theoretical lead time reduction is 33%
On-site observed average lead time reduction: 25%
Results after breaking the layers of
resistance

Logica project managed by Marten Schröder: “Inname en Mengerij Denkavit Frankrijk”,
realised margin 41,2%, planned margin 15,6%, delivery 3 weeks earlier than planned
Implementations by partner Blue Jonah, most impressive (see figures last slide): Nationale
Nederlanden IT divison (http://www.bluejonah.com)
Implementations by software company Realization (Concerto tooling)
(http://www.realization.com)
Implementations by consulting and software company ProChain
(http://www.prochain.com)
Numerous other implementations to be found on the internet
References

1) Say what you will do, do what you have promised and show that you have done
what you have said that you would do
2) Implement Project (Portfolio) Management processes and tools !
E.g. using the EPM tooling:
• Microsoft’s PPM Solution EPM (Enterprise Project Management), consisting of MS
Project server and SharePoint
• ASP/hosted/SaaS/Cloud delivered by Perrit, branding by Kwantitijd: EPM-AAA,
supplemented with documentation, training, coaching-on-the-job, helpdesk
services, and Extra Features
• Necessary Extra Features represent condensed expertise since 2004 with i-BMS,
the former Logica internal implementation of EPM
Professional planning practices ?

Professional planning practises ?
(continued)
3) Discipline !

• Lynx (supplied by info@a-dato.net)
• Flow MPM (supplied by Glow Management)
• Concerto (supplied by Realization)
• Prochain
• PS8 (supplied by Sciforma)
Recommended CCPM software

• Read “The billion dollar solution” by Newbold
• Follow the CCPM Webcasts on TOC TV
• Join LinkedIn groups “CriticalChain” and “Critical Chain Professional”
• Follow training at the TOC Academy (http://www.tocacademy.nl)
Interested in more ?

Saving time with CCPM

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