I responded to a question on the PMI member forums that I wanted to share:
Subject: Critical Chain Project Management
Does anyone have experience with this PM approach/toolset. I have run across some people proclaiming it as the savior of project management (unfortunately, the biggest proponent I met seemed to think that a Project Plan is all there is to Project Management and expressed enough negativity regarding PMI and the PMP designation that I found it hard to give credence to the validity of his information).
I am interested in any validation of its effectiveness beyond anecdotal evidence.
RE: Critical Chain Project Management
Posted by Joshua Nankivel on 01/18/2007
I personally have not had the opportunity to implement critical chain on anything except very small projects. I can give you some good resources however, citing individuals and organizations that have had success with critical chain project management.
1. The PM Podcast Episode #57. - I don't recall specific examples Alan cited on the show, but I might be wrong. You may be able to contact Alan Elder at the email address listed on Cornelius' site directly for some direction.
2. The Critical Chain Yahoo Group - has a lot of active contributors who utilize critical chain on a daily basis
3. This whitepaper from Boeing can be downloaded upon request, I requested and read it and it's a really great overview of how critical chain was used in a real project. Very well written.
4. More case studies
5. Yet another case study
I would add that I have run into some people/articles that seem to be overly confident in critical chain. I think it has great potential, but it's only a piece of the puzzle. I look forward to using it myself on larger projects in the future.
Also, one of the things I post fairly frequently about on my blog is critical chain project management. If you're interested in critical chain even the broader scope of project management in general, I'd (of course) suggest it!
Cheers!
Josh Nankivel
Please leave comments about this post!
