Critical Chain Project Management

In 1994, the Standish Group conducted a landmark study of nearly 10,000 IT projects across America and found that 52% of projects ended up costing greater than 189% of the original budget, 31% were canceled, and only 16% of projects were completed on time and on budget. In other words, uncertainty, or the Murphy bug bit them! Every project from virtually every environment has uncertainty associated with it and how this uncertainty is dealt with determines the ultimate success or failure of the project. Approximately 90% of project managers around the world are using a project management methodology known as the Critical Path Method (CPM) and have been doing so for many years. The Critical Path Method attempts to protect a project by using a “fudge factor.” Clearly, Critical Chain Project Management has demonstrated its superiority over the predominant Critical Path Project Management in a variety of industry settings, with reported cycle time improvements in the neighborhood of 40–50%.