Keeping Speed with Buffers
At ProChain, we love buffers. But here’s a dirty secret: buffers can kill speed. How? We know that buffers exist to protect commitment dates. But if the dates are what…
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Optimizing Project Management for Medicine Development
Are you struggling to improve execution in your project management endeavors? You’re not alone. Many organizations face the challenge of enhancing productivity and efficiency, especially in fields that demand precision…
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Unlocking Your Superpower: The Art of Saying ‘No’ to Prioritize Effectively
Are you struggling to balance saying “yes” to everything and focusing on what truly matters? In a world bursting with opportunities and demands, learning to say “no” effectively can be…
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Leadership and Agreement
Most of the leadership books I’ve read talk a lot about the characteristics of a leader, without quite getting to a definition. So I use my own simple definition, consistent…
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Why “Islands of Stability”?
I get this question a lot: why the book, why the concept. Here’s the answer. Our previous book, The Project Manifesto, was designed to show what needs to happen in…
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Practical Values: How to Conduct Better Meetings
What’s the biggest source of headaches and wasted time in your company? For many people, it’s the frequent, interminable meetings. People often feel like they’re spending all their time in…
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Buffers, Safety Time, and The Project Manifesto
The problem with most definitions of the project buffer is that traditional schedules already have safety time. Some of that protection may be in the form of inflated task times…
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The “Critical Chain Tool”
I often hear people talk about the “critical chain tool.” They may say “we plan to try the tool” or “please show us the tool.” There’s nothing directly wrong with…
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Critical Chain and Research
Many of our ProChain clients do significant R&D work, so people ask us from time to time whether critical chain is applicable in a research environment. The common wisdom is…
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Fever Chart Regions
I am sometimes asked how one should decide where the red, yellow, and green regions for a fever chart should go. In this post I will talk about the basics.…
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Introduction to Critical Chain
I’ve finally gotten around to putting together a brief video Introduction to Critical Chain, please let me know what you think. (I recommend using the YouTube “expand” button, it gives…
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More on Deadline Management
We continue to think about and promote a move away from deadline and milestone management, towards the relay race. The following quote from an Earned Value list on LinkedIn triggered…
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Be Fast Or Be Gone
The idea for my newest book Be Fast or Be Gone came to me while working on a contribution for my blog “The Point”. I have posted a number of…
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A Culture of Dates
In our time-conscious world, we’re used to thinking in terms of dates. What’s my calendar for today? When is the meeting, the doctor’s appointment, the television program? We rush to…
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Look Where You Want to Go
A while ago I completed a motorcycle safety class. There’s an interesting point they make over and over in the class: you should look where you want to go, not…
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The Myth About Multitasking
To make it short: Humans are terrible at multitasking. Yet knowledge workers in Corporate America are being asked to do exactly that. They are expected to stay on top of…
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Earned Value and Critical Chain
Two questions were asked on the LinkedIn “Earned Value Management” forum: “Q1. What are the WEAKNESSES and LIMITATIONS of EVM? Q2. Can EVM schedule forecasting methods provide us RELIABLE EARLY…
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Agile and Critical Chain
Introduction Agile software development techniques routinely bring a number of important benefits to software development organizations. By focusing on frequent iterations (short-term code releases), the cycle time for certain key…
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