Critical Chain (CCPM) has a dramatic impact on the performance of projects—virtually all kinds of projects. On-time performance shoots to above 90%, budget overruns are cut to near zero, lead times collapse 20-50%. The results companies report are so remarkable, that they seem like outliers. And when something is an outlier, it simply feels like it’s out of reach, or something that only happens in special cases.
Usually though, there’s some logical reasons why, and understanding them is the key to repeating the success for yourself.
So before you dismiss the results from Critical Chain and miss out on the opportunity to have similar results for you, let’s consider the reasons WHY Critical Chain works so well for projects. As with anything, there are always many contributing reasons. But after working with scores of organizations for more than 25 years, we’ve distilled it down to the top three. I think that when you understand these reasons you’ll realize that the success of Critical Chain isn’t an outlier at all and that you can have the same kind of results for yourself.
Reason #1: It recovers efficiency lost to Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking is the act of stopping a task in midstream, before it is finished or has reached a logical stopping point, to go and do something else. When I ask companies if this happens in their world, everyone just smiles—of course it happens…all the time every day. Multi-tasking drains enormous amounts of efficiency and greatly extends the time needed to complete tasks. You can Google it and see all of the articles and scientific studies about the adverse effects of multi-tasking in a host of environments. But you already know it. Just think of all the times people come in early, stay late or work the weekends. Why do they do it? Because they get so much more done then.
Every time someone is multi-tasked and has to re-start a task it takes time to “get back into” the task. You have to figure out where you were, maybe what the issues were, how you had been attacking the issue, etc. For “knowledge” work (which is the majority of the work in most projects), then the time spent in getting back up to speed can be very large, sapping a lot of individual capacity and efficiency. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that reducing multi-tasking, as Critical Chain does, can expose a lot of hidden capacity to do more without working any harder.
In addition to the loss of efficiency, the bigger impact is what it does to schedules. When we set aside one task before it is complete to do another task, we delay when that task will be finished. If someone works on a two-day task for one day, then switches to another task for a day, and then to a third for a day, before returning to complete the first two-day task on day four, it means we have doubled the duration to complete our two-day task. The reality can be even worse as people often have more than three active tasks open at the same time.
Of course since almost everyone is being multi-tasked, this is repeated all over again on the downstream tasks. Is it any wonder all the studies show that more than 2/3 of all projects are late? It is no accident then, and it shouldn’t be viewed as an outlier, that reducing multi-tasking can cut project durations by 20-50%, just as Critical Chain does.
What you should really be asking yourself is: “Does multi-tasking happen in my world?” If so, CCPM can help you get more work accomplished and complete projects much faster than you are today, by providing the mechanisms and processes to significantly reduce multi-tasking.
Reason #2: Critical Chain makes priorities transparent so we can always focus on the right things
Just as understanding that reducing multi-tasking will produce substantial benefits, it is equally straightforward with the second major reason. One of the most difficult things to do on projects is to set the proper priorities for tasks. This is probably why nearly everyone working on projects complains that task priorities are always shifting. I’m not talking about setting the priorities for which ‘project’ is most important, but for what ‘tasks’ are the most important.
Since people almost always have more than one task available to work any given day—often tasks on different projects—there is a choice to be made on which task to work first. Does it matter which task they choose? Of course it does, because whatever the choice is, it means that the other tasks will sit and wait. If those are the critical tasks, the ones that impact when the project will be finished, then you have delayed the entire project by the time those tasks are waiting to become first priority. So it’s critical that people, indeed the organization as a whole, always know the real priority of tasks.
If people are complaining that priorities are shifting all the time, as I typically hear, there are only two possible scenarios and both of them mean we are losing time on our projects. The first scenario is that priorities were wrong and the shift moved them to the correct priority, this is the best case. Here it means that whatever time was spent working the wrong priority created a delay in when we can deliver the project. The second scenario is that we moved someone from the right, (or the wrong priority it doesn’t matter which here) to the WRONG priority. Of course here it means that the shift only further delayed when the more urgent task will get done and thus delayed the project as a whole.
In reality the problem is often worse since most organizations don’t have clear, objective ways to establish and enforce which tasks are most important in terms of delivering the project on time. So priorities often get set by some more arbitrary means—whichever manager cries the loudest for their task to get done, is one. Or it might be as simple as which task a person prefers to work on, or which task arrived to me first, etc. Either way, if the decision is made considering which task is impacting the overall project the most it is likely to be the wrong priority. By making the actual priorities of all tasks transparent to everyone in the organization, Critical Chain ensures that task owners know what to work on, and that managers know which tasks to focus on or shift resources to help. So it’s not magic when Critical Chain reports that more projects get done on time.
Reason #3: Critical Chain points you to delays and risks early, so you have time to respond
The third reason is probably the simplest of all to understand, and a simple illustration will demonstrate it. Imagine you are a salesman and you are unexpectedly asked to make a pitch to two new customers for a complete solution to their large and complicated problem. They do not want an off-the-shelf solution and they want to see the details. The first customer wants the pitch in two weeks; the second one wants it tomorrow. In which case will you be able to do a better job? Obviously with the first customer, for the simple reason that you have time to respond. The same is true for managing projects. The more time you have to respond to a delay, a problem, a change, a mistake, whatever, the more options you have, the more resources you can bring to bear on it, etc.
Does this sometimes happen in your world—where problems only become apparent late in the project? I was with a client recently whose business depends heavily on their ability to deliver complex custom products (projects). Their repeated complaint, particularly from upper management was—there are too many surprises. We know things are going to happen, there will be problems and delays to face. When we have early warning about these things the chances of finding a solution or work-around are far greater. No one would dream of building a military base without a radar system to provide advance warning of a threat. It would be too vulnerable and it’s unlikely it would survive. Running our mission critical projects without early-warning radar is just as dangerous. By the time we can see it, it’s probably too late to do much about it.
If your organization experiences these three phenomena:
- Widespread multi-tasking
- Shifting (unclear) task priorities
- Frequent, late surprises
Critical Chain may be exactly what you need to deliver on-time more reliably. If you want to learn more, sign up for a free 30 minute webinar.
Now here’s a question for you—Have you applied any of the Critical Chain concepts in your business? If so tell us how they worked, and what obstacles you faced in getting them implemented. Thanks and have a great week.