Critical Cases

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  

An equipment manufacturer is turning away new business. An airline is delaying flights due to maintenance issues. A homebuilder is struggling with a regulatory-driven software implementation. Here is a look at how three companies turned to Critical Chain to fix debilitating project management problems.

The Project Flow 2011 Conference in San Diego, California, focused on the use of Critical Chain techniques in project management, and included a number of case studies of organizations that successfully applied Critical Chain principles to address significant project challenges, including resource constraints and inefficient processes. This article summaries the efforts of three such organizations.

Delta Airlines was faced with a challenge. After the merger with Northwest, Delta became the largest airlines in the world with over 700 aircraft across 13 fleets and 2500 daily departures around the world. One of the issues Delta knew it needed to address was the number of daily flight cancellations. To do this, the company turned to Critical Chain.

Critical Chain was not new for Delta — its Engines & Components department, part of TechOps, started implementing Critical Chain in 2007. The results: a 30 percent reduction in engine turn-around time. In 2010, Critical Chain was brought into the Line Maintenance organization with a goal of improving its “…

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