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Critical Chain Method Article

The Critical Chain Method (CCM) is an alternative project planning method to CPM and PERT that places more emphasis on resource constraints. CCM, also called Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), reduces project durations compared to traditional methods by accounting for uncertainty through buffers. The document provides examples of CCM implementations in the software PS8 and recommends comparing CCM to CPM using Activity-on-Arrow diagrams to better understand the different methods.

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33 views1 page

Critical Chain Method Article

The Critical Chain Method (CCM) is an alternative project planning method to CPM and PERT that places more emphasis on resource constraints. CCM, also called Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), reduces project durations compared to traditional methods by accounting for uncertainty through buffers. The document provides examples of CCM implementations in the software PS8 and recommends comparing CCM to CPM using Activity-on-Arrow diagrams to better understand the different methods.

Uploaded by

Steve Bywater
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Critical Chain Method (CCM)

This brief article is intended to help you find out more about Goldratt’s (1997) method of planning and managing
projects, which was described in Unit 7, that places more emphasis on the resources required to perform tasks
than the traditional methods that were presented in Unit 3 (e.g. CPM, PERT).
The growing popularity of applying the method since the turn of the century has seen a slight change in the title
being used: Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). The popularity of CCPM is reflected in the many articles
and resources now available on the Web (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_chain). You would be able to find
quite a variety of examples of how to apply Goldratt’s principles that can look a little more complex that the
example we used in Unit 7 (e.g. www.refresher.com/CriticalChainProjectManagement.pdf). The example that we
used from Buttrick’s book (2005) reflects the regular use of Gantt charts to present schedules. Because of its origin
in the USA, you’ll find a number of papers in the Project Management Journal on the subject (e.g. Leach, 1999,
and Trietsch, 2005).
For those of you who have been using the software supplied by the course (PS8), it is possible to work through
some examples relating to the Critical Chain Method. An explanation of the method can be found by selecting the
Help option from the main menu in PS8, then clicking on the Guides option, which will give you access to the
Critical Chain Concepts. There are some examples that you can open in PS8 to see how the concepts have
been applied. When you open up PS8 form your desktop, for example, there is an option inside the initial window
that you can follow: Open existing projects. When you click the OK button, you’ll be taken into the following
folder: Program Files/Scitor/PS8. Click on the Samples folder and you’ll find the practical examples related to the
Sailboat Project used in PS8’s general tutorial guide. You’ll see the three files that have applied CPM and CCM to
the sailboat schedules (e.g. Sailboat(Critical Chain).PSP). The schedule that illustrates the CPM gives an overall
duration of 70 days for the sailboat tasks. By applying the CCM, it goes down to a duration of 53 days after using
the 50% estimate rule as well as the rules for creating both feeder buffers and the project buffer.
Because of the regularity of presenting schedules on a Gantt chart, you’ll find that there isn’t a corresponding
example of an AoN diagram if you click on the Network Diagram View for the sailboat examples for CPM and
CCM. So, you could try creating an AoN diagram for each example to help you identify some of the rules that
software applications have used for their Gantt charts. If you wanted to try out some of the CCM rules/concepts by
hand, you’ll probably find it easier to use the AoA method from Unit 3. Whilst we do appreciate that all of the
scheduling applications use AoN, you might find it easier to improve your understanding of CPM and CCM by
using a pair AoA diagrams to compare the two methods (whether it’s the sailboat example from PS8, one from a
Google search around the web or even a chunk from the project you have chosen for the assignments in M865).
At the time of writing, there are no open source scheduling applications that you can use to investigate the CCM.
But, there is another website that you can use to read about how Goldratt’s principles (1997) have been applied.
ProChain is a company that has developed a tool that can be used for CCPM (www.prochain.com). There are
several articles on their website that you can download.

References and further reading


Buttrick, R. (2005) The Project Workout (3rd edn), London, Financial Times Pitman Publishing.
Goldratt, E. (1997) Critical Chain, Great Barrington, MA, North River Press.
Leach, L.P. (1999) ‘Critical Chain Project Management Improves Performance’, Project Management Journal, vol.
30, no. 2, pp. 39-51.
Trietsch, D. (2005) ‘Why a Critical Path by any other name would smell less sweet’, Project Management Journal,
vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 27-36.

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