This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Multi-Project Management and Organizational Effectiveness VIII -- Managing the Present and the Future -- The present...
Today - “What should I be working on?” - Clarity of priority at the task level. If projects are not overloading the system, the question of which task to work is simplified by the mere reduction of active tasks in play. In-boxes are less loaded. However, due to the vagaries of project plans, and of variation in task performance, occasionally it might occur that a resource faces the need to choose one task to pick up and finish before addressing another one that is waiting. There are several options to providing such guidance.
Assuming that the individual projects are being actively managed via Critical Path or Critical Chain processes, one consideration is whether any of the waiting tasks are on the critical path or critical chain of the project in question. If so, that task would most likely be the appropriate first choice over a competing “non-critical” task.
If there is a choice of two or more “critical” tasks from different projects, the relative health of the projects in question can be easily assessed based on working one, then the other, and vice versa. The scenario that leaves the best combination of the resulting health of the projects’ promises in best condition (or maximizes the benefits associated with both projects) would be preferred. In an environment based on Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management, project buffers provide not only the ability of projects to absorb such decisions, but also make the assessment process straightforward. Critical Path-based projects, usually relying on smaller, if any, schedule reserves, might have to add some additional recovery activities. (Note that this constraint-based approach to multi-project management comes from the same source as Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management; the Theory of Constraints, and the two processes work together by design.)
If all queued tasks are “non-critical,” it’s less of an issue, and while usually a first-come-first-served process will suffice, a consideration of the general health of the project promise, or in the case of a Critical Chain project, buffer consumption, could also provide useful guidance.
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