Critical Chain project management : a case study in software Industry

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) has been a controversial topic with extreme opinions on its merits. This is in turn partly due to dominance of theoretical debates in CCPM literature as opposed to empirical evidence and cases studies. This paper presents the findings of a case study research in software industry. Multiple semi-structured interviews and project documents were used. The paper provides insight into pre-requisites and practicalities of CCPM application such as accommodating iterative loops and reciprocal dependencies. The findings also provide some perspectives into current debates in CCPM literature concerning uncertainty, buffer sizing and dealing with large projects

A review of the scholarly literature on CCPM : a focus on underpinning assumptions

Since critical chain project management (CCPM) was introduced, there have been many reports of its successful application, along with some claims of its shortcomings. However, there has been no attempt to reconcile the often-contradictory claims. To this end, we compiled and analysed a comprehensive database of CCPM scholarly publications. The literature analysis was complemented with text mining using NVivo and Leximancer software. We identify five assumptions CCPM makes about projects, leading to five characteristics that projects need to have for CCPM to apply fully and thus, provide the expected benefits. These characteristics are unity of purpose, fixed ‘throughput’, urgency, sequential workflow and a non-dedicated team. If projects have these or can be adapted, then they will suit CCPM. Through the process of assumption challenging, this research extends and enhances our understanding of CCPM and its core mechanisms

Critical chain project management : a case study in the software industry

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) has been a controversial topic with extreme opinions on its merits. This is in turn partly due to dominance of theoretical debates in CCPM literature as opposed to empirical evidence and cases studies. This paper presents the findings of a case study research in software industry. Multiple semi-structured interviews and project documents were used. The paper provides insight into pre-requisites and practicalities of CCPM application such as accommodating iterative loops and reciprocal dependencies. The findings also provide some perspectives into current debates in CCPM literature concerning uncertainty, buffer sizing and dealing with large projects

Project dilemmas

Successful management of a project depends upon a series of appropriate decisions throughout the project life cycle. Such decisions are not necessarily straightforward and project managers who make those project-level decisions often face dilemmas. This paper presents findings from a research project that uncovered some of those dilemmas in the context of multi-case study in the software industry. We used a Theory of Constraints thinking process tool called the Evaporating Cloud to analyse dilemmas by examining their underpinning reasoning and assumptions. Four dilemmas were identified and investigated which were related to customer satisfaction, ensuring security and flexibility, defining specifications, and responding to new opportunities. Analysing these dilemmas led to useful insights into the challenges of choosing best practices in project management. It was found that the root cause of those challenges was the process of interpreting and transferring prescriptive project management concepts and methods to an actual project. The Evaporating Cloud was found to be be a powerful tool to explain the problem at hand and expose faulty assumptions

The theory of constraints: a methodology apart?--a comparison with selected OR/MS methodologies

Mingers (J. Oper. Res. Soc. 54 (2003) 559; Int. Trans. Oper. Res. 7 (2000) 673; J. Mingers, A. Gill (Eds.), Multimethodology: Towards the Theory and Practice of Combining Management Science Methodologies, Wiley, Chichester, 1997), Mingers and Brocklesby (Omega--Int. J. Manage. Sci. 25(5) (1997) 489; Systemist 18(3) (1996) 101) and others have sought to develop classificatory frameworks that would be useful in understanding the nature and characteristics of Operational Research/Management Science (OR/MS) methodologies and the philosophical assumptions underpinning them. This paper extends their work to the domain of methods and methodologies known as the Theory of Constraints (TOC). In particular, the paper helps position TOC methods and tools in relation to traditional OR/MS methodologies, methods and tools, and provides a basis for continuing multi-methodological development across the two domains. The paper concludes that the tools, techniques and methods of TOC can be viewed as a methodological set of complementary hard and soft tools and methods that contribute to all phases of activity and across all three social, personal and material dimensions of the Mingers-Brocklesby framework, and share the ontological and epistemological characteristics and assumptions of extant OR/MS methodologies.Theory of constraints OR/MS Soft OR/Systems Methodology Multimethodology Classification frameworks