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 people care most about, buffer consumption will only be viewed as important when the dates are in jeopardy. If there’s “extra” buffer, people will use it: lowering their urgency, working on other things, or polishing their cannon balls. That means the only way to deliver earlier is to make smaller buffers—to squeeze them. That increases the risk of being late. It also creates mistrust: management won’t trust teams’ views on how much buffer is needed, teams won’t trust management to preserve necessary safety time.
There are a couple of big effects of this. One is that projects usually hit their dates, but they don’t finish early. Predictability, but not speed. Another is an ongoing push-pull at the project level. Project team members want bigger buffers, to reduce their risk of being late; management wants smaller buffers, to increase speed. Scheduling becomes a political exercise.
What’s the answer? How do you get more and more speed, while using buffers?
The key is to encourage people to view all buffer time as important, even if consumption is in the green. I have two recommendations for doing that.
- Encourage people to want to go faster, rather than encouraging them not to miss deadlines. Value speed over deadlines. How does speed relate to your organization’s goal? Why should people care about that goal? How do people’s measurements relate to speed? What conflicts do people experience when they try to go faster? What data can you collect to see if you’re going faster or slower?
- Build trust. Management needs to trust teams to understand what’s possible; teams need to trust management to understand what’s necessary. With this, you can have meaningful discussions. Without it, people will continue fighting over safety time that will, inevitably, be used up.
These recommendations will help you work together towards speed and reliability.
This is a big and controversial topic, and I’ve barely skimmed the surface. For example: whose buffer is it, anyway? Contact us and let us know what you think.
This article was first published in the ProChain Practitioners Newsletter.
