Q1) Discuss the essential points of project management as conveyed in the book : The Critical Chainby Eliyahu Goldratt-based

on the theory of constraints.

Critical Chain Project Management was developed by Dr Eli Goldratt and was first introduced to the market in his Theory of Constraints book Critical Chain in 1997. Critical chain project management is based on methods and algorithms derived from Theory of Constraints.It was developed in response to many projects being dogged by poor performance manifested in longer than expected durations, frequently missed deadlines, The original dues dates are not usually met, Too often resources are not available where and when needed(even when promised),increased costs in excess of budget, and substantially less deliverables than originally promised. Application of CCPM has been credited with achieving projects 10% to 50% faster and/or cheaper than the traditional methods (i.e. CPM, PERT, Gantt, etc.).CCPM planning aggregates the large amounts of safety time added to tasks within a project into the buffers in order to protect due-date performance, and to avoid wasting this safety time through bad multitasking, student syndrome, Parkinson's Law and poorly synchronized integration. The more safety in a task the more there is a tendency to behave in the above ways. As a result, the safety which was included at the planning stage is wasted and, if Murphy strikes and problems do occur, tasks over-run. Multi-Tasking:Management force for intuitive but invalid reasons people to work on more than one task at once . This drives people to switch between tasks leading them to elongate time estimates in planning and further waste the embedded task safety in execution. Student syndrome refers to the phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before a deadline. The student syndrome is a form of procrastination. Parkinsons Law is an observation that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion," and that a sufficiently large bureaucracy will generate enough internal work to keep itself busy and so justify its continued existence without commensurate output.

Critical chain project management

Critical Chain - the Critical Chain is defined as the longest chain [not path] of dependent tasks. In this case, dependent refers to resources and resource contention across tasks/projects as well as the sequence and logical dependencies of the tasks themselves. This differs from the Critical Path Method.

Planning A project plan is created in much the same fashion as with critical path. The plan is worked backward from a completion date with each task starting as late as possible.A duration is assigned to each task. Some software implementations added go through the duration estimate of every task and remove a fixed percentage to be aggregated into the buffers.Resources are assigned to each task, and the plan is resource leveled, using the aggressive durations. The longest sequence of resource-leveled tasks that lead from beginning to end of the project is then identified as the critical chain. Recognizing that tasks are more likely to take more rather than less time due to Parkinson's law, Student syndrome, or other reasons, "buffers" are used to monitor project schedule and financial performance.Finally, a baseline is established, which enables financial monitoring of the project.

Estimations To reduce the behaviours and time wasting associated with having too much embedded safety, Critical Chain Project Management recommends that task estimates are cut to half the length of a normal duration. Safety Critical Chain Project Management uses safety Buffers to manage the impact of variation and uncertainty around projects. The safety at a task level is aggregated and moved to strategic points in the project flow. There are three types of buffer/strategic points necessary to ensure the project has sufficient safety:

Project Buffer A project buffer is inserted at the end of the project network between the last task and the completion date. Any delays on the longest chain of dependant tasks will consume some of the buffer but will leave the completion date unchanged and so protect the project. The project buffer is typically recommended to be half the size of the safety time taken out, resulting in a project that is planned to be 75% of a traditional project network. Feeding Buffers delays on paths of tasks feeding into the longest chain can impact the project by delaying a subsequent task on the Critical Chain. To protect against this, feeding buffers are inserted between the last task on a feeding path and the Critical Chain. The feeding buffer is typically recommended to be half the size of the safety time taken out of the feeding path. Resource Buffers Resource buffers can be set alongside of the Critical Chain to ensure that the appropriate people and skills are available to work on the Critical Chain tasks as soon as needed.

Execution Priorities - All resources on a project are given clear and aligned priorities relating to the health of the Critical Chain relative to its associated buffer and hence the project as a whole. A resource with more than one task open should normally be assigned to complete any task jeopardising any projects Critical Chain before completing any feeding path task.

Completion resources on a task are encouraged to follow the roadrunner approach. When there is work available it should be progressed at the fastest possible speed (without compromising quality) until completed. Tasks are not left partially complete to remove the temptation to multitask. As task duration estimates have reduced safety they drive resources to meet the more aggressive durations and limit the behaviours of Student Syndrome and Parkinsons Law. Monitoring Monitoring is the greatest advantage of the Critical Chain method.we monitor the buffers that were created during the planning stage. A fever chart or similar graph can be easily created and posted to show the consumption of buffer as a function of project completion Buffer Management the amount each buffer is consumed relative to project progress tells us how badly the delays are effecting our committed delivery date. If the variation throughout the project is uniform then the project should consume its project buffer at the same rate tasks are completed. The result is a project completed with the buffer fully consumed on the day it was estimated and committed. Project Managers determine the corrective actions necessary to recover buffer time at points in the project where the buffer consumption is occurring faster than the project is progressing. Remaining duration tasks are monitored on their remaining duration, not their percentage complete. Resources report upon tasks in progress based on the number of days they estimate until the task will be complete. If the remaining duration stays static or increases, then Project Managers and Resource Managers watching the buffers know exactly where a blockage or potential delay is occurring and can take decisive action quickly to recover.