tailieunhanh - Critical Chain: A New Project Management Paradigm or Old Wine in New Bottles?

Management Control the approaches, methodologies and frameworks applied by an agency to plan and control the implementation of change initiatives for which it is responsible, in this context new policy proposals. Program (or Programme) a temporary flexible structure created to coordinate, direct and oversee the implementation of a set of related projects and activities in order to deliver outcomes and benefits related to strategic policy objectives. Because the term “program” is in common use by the APS, it is recommended that departments and agencies use the term “change program” to name initiatives if it is felt confusion may arise | Critical Chain A New Project Management Paradigm or Old Wine in New Bottles Thomas G. Lechler Stevens Institute of Technology Boaz Ronen Tel Aviv University Edward A. Stohr Stevens Institute of Technology Abstract In this paper we analyze the Critical Chain CC approach to managing projects. Is CC as some authors assert one of the most important breakthrough for project management since the introduction of the Critical Path concept CP or does CC merely consist of known concepts presented in a different way Our discourse compares systematically CC and CPM on three conceptual levels to reveal the differences between the two approaches. We conclude that the philosophy behind the CP and CC approaches is remarkably different resulting in a different mindset for managers and a different set of management practices. The main difference is the application of the Theory of Constraints TOC in the CC case. As a result CC focuses at improving the systems performance by laying out specific policies many of which are focused on resource management especially in multiproject environments that are not explicitly addressed by CP. We conclude that while the application of CC is complex many of its ideas can be easily adapted by practicing managers. Keywords Critical Chain Theory of Constraints Buffer Management Critical Path Method EMJ Focus Areas Program Project Management Ever since Goldratt introduced critical chain CC in his book of the same name in 1997 the concept has been widely discussed in the project management literature and project management community. Some authors see CC as the most important breakthrough for project management since the introduction of the critical path method and refer to CC as the direction for project management in the 21st century Steyn 2002 Newbold 1998 . Others question its innovativeness and argue that it consists of known concepts presented in a different way Maylor 2000 Raz et al. 2003 McKay and Morton 1998 . In the last few years several .