Critical Chain & Agile

Bob Tarne, PMP, CSM is an accomplished consultant, speaker, and writer. He is currently an Engagement Manager with IBM as well as an active volunteer with the Project Management Institute. His blog can be found at zen-pm.blogspot.com.

  Agile   ProjectsAtWork  

The Critical Chain approach to executing projects has been compared to Lean, which also shares common ground with Agile-related techniques such as Kanban. Is there untapped synergy between Critical Chain and Agile methods? A recent conference helped to shine light on their similarities and key differences.

In his book Kanban, David J. Anderson, in discusses how his approach evolved from drum-rope-buffer, part of Theory of Constraints and the work by Eliyahu Goldratt. Critical Chain is also based on the work by Goldratt, who passed away earlier this year. Both Theory of Constraints and Kanban are forms of pull systems. So is Critical Chain, like Kanban, another flavor of Agile, or is it something different?

During the Project Flow 2011 Conference held in San Diego this past November, a number of case studies were presented on how organizations used Critical Chain and the success that was achieved following this technique. A key concept that a number of the presenters attributed to their success was reducing work in progress.

Studies have shown how people cannot multitask. People will be more effective when given a fewer number of tasks and allowed to complete those before being assigned additional work. Critical Chain takes this idea a step further and says organizations cannot multitask either. They are best served by focusing on fewer projects at a time, as well…

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