Project Management - Theory of Constraints’ way (TOC - CCPM)

Explore fundamentals of TOC, learn systems thinking, and identify system constraints as the biggest opportunity for improvement, then cover the five focusing steps, uncertainties, and TOC thinking tools and applications.

Explore the five focusing steps of TOC with a simple production example, showing how to identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate, and manage inertia to optimize system capacity in CCPM.

Explore TOC thinking processes, including the three questions of change, to map causes with current reality tree and evaporating cloud, guiding transition to future reality in project environments.

Explore the theory of constraints (TOC) and critical chain project management (CCPM) to optimize system performance by identifying constraints, using buffers, and applying reflection questions to drive improvement.

explore theory of constraints in project management through a system-based approach. identify the system's few constraints, use buffers, and view inertia and idle resources as factors.

Define projects, their types and importance, then outline planning elements like project charter, work breakdown structure, and workflow diagrams; compare CPM, PERT, and CCPM in scheduling.

Understand projects as temporary, unique activities aiming to deliver a result, contrasted with operations, governed by time, cost, and scope, and executed through initiation, planning, execution, and closing.

Explore how projects increase throughput under the theory of constraints, using odsc, wbs, and product flow diagrams to define objectives, deliverables, and success criteria into a project plan.

Learn to design and analyze project networks with AOA and AON diagrams, compare CPM and PERT, and identify critical path, critical chain, float, and crashing strategies.

Explore how projects differ from operations, measure throughput, and use product flow diagrams with AOA or AON. Identify the critical path and the critical chain after resource leveling.

Explore project management methodologies, including PMBOK and Agile, and examine challenges in planning and execution for single and multi-projects, emphasizing how assumptions affect overall project timelines.

Explore project management approaches from waterfall to agile, including PMBOK and Scrum. Compare their impact on time, cost, scope, and collaboration, with agile iterations and continuous integration.

Balance cost, scope, and time amid uncertainty from precedence structures and human behavior. Identify multi-project challenges, unplanned rework, and immutable laws of Critical Chain Project Management.

The lecture explains that project problems stem from assumptions about time and task protection. It shows how safety buffers, multitasking, and early starts create cascaded delays that undermine performance.

Explore the learnings on project management methodologies, from waterfall to agile, the PMI framework of 5 process groups, 10 knowledge areas, and 49 processes, plus task selection considerations.

Explore how time affects project management by examining time estimation, task dependencies, multitasking, student syndrome, Parkinson's law, and learning checks.

Blend time estimation with art and probabilistic models to set 80–90 percent estimates, showing how safety erodes in execution due to task dependency, multitasking, student syndrome, and Parkinson's law.

The theory of constraints shows that task dependencies transfer delays downstream, while gains rarely do; in a shaped flow, a delay in C can extend the project to eight days.

Explore how bad multitasking slows work by switching between tasks without finishing them, increasing setup time, compromising safety, and delaying project completion.

Identify student syndrome as the habit of postponing work until the last moment, eroding safety and triggering project delays across any time or place.

Parkinson's law states work expands to the time available, with data filling the disk space, and sandbagging or perfectionism slowing progress, a key safety risk.

Analyze probabilistic time estimates, noting the 50 percent probability is the average time estimate. Show how estimates aim for 80–90 percent probability and how Parkinson's law and multitasking waste contingency.

Explore CCPM with buffers to protect schedules from uncertainty, build a critical chain with time estimates, and apply three buffers, WIP control by pipelining, and prioritization.

Shift from safe durations to average time estimates, accept a 50 percent completion rate with tentative dates, and apply the critical chain (TOC CCPM) accounting for task and resource dependencies.

Learn to manage projects with buffer management in CCPM by tracking remaining durations, using the fever chart to compare completion and buffer consumption, and prioritizing tasks on the critical chain.

Identify CCPM learnings: focus on the critical chain, treat task durations probabilistic, place project-level buffers with feeding and resource buffers, and use fever charts to monitor progress.

Explore the five focusing steps of TOC for project management and the four main steps of implementing CCPM in a single project environment, using a real project example.

Identify the system constraint and then exploit, subordinate to, elevate, and repeat the five focusing steps of TOC to improve the critical chain and CCPM performance in a single-project environment.

Implement CCPM by identifying the critical chain and using project, feeding, and resource buffers, then push chains to start as late as possible and manage execution with buffer monitoring.

Learnings from the theory of constraints reveal the critical chain, using average task estimates to build a CCPM network with start dates only, and monitor buffer consumption.

Explore how theory of constraints and critical chain project management apply to multiproject environments by examining resource constraints, five focusing steps, and the role of pipelining to increase project throughput.

Apply the five focusing steps of TOC in a multiproject environment: identify the capacity constrained resource (CCR) or drum, exploit it, subordinate others, elevate capacity, and repeat.

Learn how to improve flow in a multiproject environment by staggering projects through a capacity constrained resource, using pipelining and work-in-process limits to control lead times.

Implement CCPM in a multiproject environment by building buffered critical chain plans, prioritizing projects, establishing the drum resource and CCR schedule, and aligning staggered releases with buffers.

Identify the constraint as the drum or CCR in a multiproject environment, control WIP, and use pipelining, buffers, and WIP boards to prioritize projects and prevent flow fluctuations.

Outline of the course finale, summarizing key takeaways on CCPM in a nutshell, exploring software tools, and addressing common questions in CCPM practice within the Theory of Constraints.

Explore CCPM's three principles: aggregate safety at the project level, minimize work in process, and prioritize by buffer status, enabling shorter project lead times and a collaborative path to success.

Learn how CCPM applies TOC principles while evaluating software and hybrid methods, from Concerto and MS Project add-ons to dashboards and fever chart, and secure buy-in to avoid local optima.

Implement CCPM mid-project when stakeholders are ready, prioritize red-zone tasks by buffer priority, and adapt project buffers and drum constraints as new projects enter the portfolio.

Explore the theory of constraints as a science of identifying and managing leverage points to improve system performance, and apply CCPM to operations, supply chain management, and finance.