TOCICO

Starting in the 1960’s the emphasis in project management shifted to taking advantage of computers to improve project management. There were many contributors, such as John Fondahl at Stanford University, developing the algorithms that were to become the foundation for the project management software tools that are prevalent today. These tools offered new features to plan, schedule and execute, however, the thinking captured in the algorithms for the most part were not new. And in fact remain essentially unchanged, focusing on new features and capabilities. It wasn’t until 1997 when Eliyahu Goldratt published the book, Critical Chain, introducing the critical chain methodology as an alternative to the critical path methodology did we have the next major change in project management thinking. There are many adaptors to this way of thinking. Regrettably change as we have seen comes slowly and it will take additional time before the full impact of critical chain methodology is totally understood across the project management community. So the pattern has been established. We first see new thinking evolve and then tools developed building on these advances, producing powerful breakthrough solutions. With Gantt, critical path and PERT they used the technology available, initially paper charts and graphs, evolving into software solutions. When critical chain appeared the solutions developed immediately leveraged the existent availability and capabilities of computers and software. Improvements using critical chain thinking without software could be achieved, however they cannot benefit from the wide and far-reaching disruptive technology that was now available. We must now break the pattern. I believe the next breakthrough will require challenging our own assumptions to push the envelope of current critical chain thinking. We must leverage the significant advances in computing power; advanced software technology and means of delivery in order to have new thinking evolve. This very well may be creating new knowledge … you will be the judge. Video length: 1:01:24. PDF: 26 slides.