TOC IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT 1

[uppili11]

IN THE CURRENT BUSINESS SITUATION ONE HAS TO HANDLE MANY PROJECTS SIMULTANEOUSLY THE PROJECTS COULD BE A SIMPLE CUSTOMER COMPLAINT HANDLING TO MORE COMPLICATED PRODUCT/PROCESS DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OR A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM LIKE KAIZEN/TPM ETC.BUT NO COMPANY IS WILLING TO EXPAND THE HUMAN RESOURCES AND TRYING TO DE-DEPARTMENTALIZE THE CONVENTIONAL DEPT BASED FUNCTIONING.HAS ANYBODY ATTEMPTED IN USING A TOC APPROACH OF IDENTIFYING THE WEAK LINK IN SEVEARL PROJECTS AND PUTTING MAXIMUM RESOURCES FOR A SPECIFIC LINK.OFCOURSE THIS TECHNIQUE IS VERY HELPFUL IN THRUPUT MAXIMIZATION,BUT AM NOT SURE HW FAR THIS WILL BE SUCCESSFULL IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT.ANY THOUGHTS ON THIS??

 

[griffengm]

I believe that TOC is addressed in PM by use of Critical Path Analysis. Further, by the definition of tasks and the resources available to them TOC becomes more refined. The manager can do exactly what you describe using these two tools.
They allow the PM to look at various "what-if" scenarios and to manipulate the variables - time, money, people - to find the weak links.

 

[dporte17]

I don't know if you read Critical Chain - Goldratt but he spells it out well. If you can get past the fact that it read like an infomercial there are some really good ideas. I don't know personally of many people that have implemented it on a large scale, but I have used the concepts a couple times on smaller "projects" with success (I didn't really have a benchmark to gauge if it was an improvement or not, but things went well for me)

Dave