TOCICO

Theory of constraints professionals understand the importance of using critical chain to solve the major undesirable effects (UDEs) of project management. Injecting this solution into an organization, however, often fails – not because of the solution, but because the business process that surrounds project management is broken. Quoting Katsuaki Watanabe, the CEO of Toyota: “Brilliant process management is our strategy. We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average (or worse) results from brilliant people managing broken processes.” Can we set up a brilliant management process that will generate brilliant results using TOC solutions? In this webinar, we’ll take a look at a business process that leverages theory of constraints concepts, focused on critical chain. Key elements include: Understand why project management doesn’t work in our current paradigm The root cause that generates our UDEs; Collaboration across multiple sites to create a single project network with strong resource support The need for the business process to focus on resource availability Using critical chain tools to create a successful project analysis process Creating time buffers using high/low task estimates vs. the current buffer sizing methods; NOTE: The high/low task estimate method is NOT currently in the TOC body of knowledge of critical chain project management (CCPM) and should not be studied for use in any certification testing. Decision making in the multi-project environment Business process steps that will require paradigm shifts Creating and executing routines that will entrench the CC business process. This webinar will include the unique element of real time interaction with students to create a simple project network. We’ll put this network into the project management collaborative solution LiquidPlanner. The software will also allow the class to see how the critical chain process will be used to manage the multi-project environment. Games and simulations in Liquid Planner will be used to reinforce learnings, including Dealing with late projects; “What if” analysis; Subordination of resources; Creating a focused task list for individual resources. We’ll also stress the critical step of setting up the project review meeting routine. This process must be established quickly, before the inevitable loss of a champion, implementation budget, and resource reassignment cause our TOC solution to fail.