Critical Chain Project Management vs. Critical Path

Learn the differences between Critical Chain Project Management and Critical Path.

Learn how and why the ground-breaking critical chain project management methodology left critical path management in its wake!

Devin Deen presents the history of critical chain project management and its advantages over the long standing critical path methodology.

He explains how this style of project management came out around 1996-1997 when Eliyahu Goldratt published his book, Critical Chain Method.

Want to learn how to plan, execute and monitor a project using the critical chain management approach?.

Discover the benefits of incorporating the critical chain management methodology into your projects by watching this info-packed video now!

[classanddignity]

You not only taught what it does, but you explained it's purpose and the differences to the other critical path method, which gave the ultimate clarity. Bravissimo!

[shkaushal]

I watched many presentations on CCPM however this is by far best in term of clarity and content.

[nps]

After a couple of iterations team adjusted by providing a 2x longer scheduling estimates :)

[xingchunmeng]

Thanks for a Clear and straightforward session!

[giantcat]

That's a really useful explanation, thank you. You hit all the main points concisely and clearly.

[BadarSyed]

Excellent, simple and to the point explanation

[davidaustin]

Robotically cutting their expected completion time by 50% is a great way to loose your best employees. Instead you should explain to them the urgency, ask them for a best case and worst case, and then expect from them the best case, but your buffer is added by (worstcase - bestcase)/2 for each task. Everything else he says is good. Shareholders have a expected delivery date of bestcase plus percentage buffer or buffer left whichever is less (if you are halfway through and buffer is gone then you need to crash or fast-track to get back the lost buffer). Also, you should always refer to your used or remaining buffer status in terms of percent, not hours.

[rachelfernandes]

This is explained so well! Got a presentation regarding this topic and I'm so glad it has cleared my conepts.

[iliakherrera]

Excellent video, help me a lot on a assigment!!!

[sarahmawell]

Thank you for the overview on CCPM.. very good example... well done ..

[tootrue]

Excellent presentation. I now have a good understanding of the CCPM concept and its use. Thank you so much!

[NoahTheKing]

is taking time from the schedule called crashing? as far as i know crashing is adding more resources and overtime to cut time

[rizihsan]

Should the original timeline and buffer be kept a secret from the project team and only used for upwards communication?

[holyonfire]

Thank you for this! It was very helpful.

[EmmanuelHemmings]

I worked with a Senior PM who did CCPM, except he neglected to actually promote the buffer date and instead pushed for the 50% reduced date.... you guess how long his dev team stuck around.

[jimhodgson]

Thanks for the video - very helpful. Can I just query the way in which 'crash the schedule' was used here - as in PMP we are taught that this means adding more resources to compress the schedule, however in this example 'crashed schedule' meant something else?

[JonKGKeys]

This was FANTASTIC!! You are a great communicator and I would think this method suits better than Critical path as that is more rigid and introduces possibilities for less or more effort from the project team. Love it!

[miedono]

Thanks.  The white board is a very effective tool for explaining the CC concepts.

[Cold-er]

When I typed in "Chain Thinking" I wanted to see if there was anyone else that did it. What I mean by chain thinking is sometimes I start thinking about something then end up thinking about something totally different. For example, I think about Basketball then end up thinking about Chinese board games. I can't really explain it just happens.

[batirk]

It won’t work. Consider this, the Resource A (R.A) estimates time to complete Work Package 1 (WP.1) in T time. The PM compresses schedule for WP.1 to T/2 time (plus T/2 buffer). Now, R.A will finish late and use buffer time, or finish in T/2 time and submit incomplete work with hidden errors. R.A knows he/she is now underperforming and feels bad about it. For the next Work Package B, R.A will submit time estimate of 2T. The PM will half it to T and allocate a buffer T. This will allow R.A to comfortably complete WP.2 on time. It will also wise up other resources to use inflated numbers in their estimates. Great, isn’t it?
Another problem is, what happens if there is dependency, if R.A has to hand in completed WP.1 to Resource B. As I mentioned above, Resource B will either receive incomplete package on time, or will have to delay working on WP.1 because R.A is late and is using extra time from buffer.
Also, this completely goes against principles of agile (self-organizing teams, and what not).