Insights So Far

[petert]

Implementatiom Insights:
Buffer Management:
This is the whole point of CCPM. CCPM as a plan has segregated the "activity or task time" from "the safety time". Now we need to manage the resources during the activity time and understand why safety time is needed to protect the due date from variability. we also need to understand the priorities along the way as variability interferes with our plan.

SO, Buffer management allows us to react to priorities, and over many projects, allows us to see what priorities are more important than others, by understanding the amount of buffer penetration and the risk to the projects.

Buffer Logging, helps us to understand the source of the variation, and this is the source of our process improvement initiatives.
we have some neat simple ways to do this, so watch this space...

[petert]

The Daily Routine....
"The State of The Nation Status Report".

What does it look like?
What should it look like?
What action do we need to do to change it?

This is how we assess our buffers, and take corrective action to protect our buffers. when our buffers are erroded, we have no buffer, and that serves no purpose at all.

"But it seems like more work than before...."
Yes, it may, but the previous chaotic crisis management is replaced with controlled intensity that brings useful results.

[noel.macken]

As part of the installation team for the week Feb 1 - Feb 5 I had a few of insights I thought worth sharing.

Firstly, it was obvious that SKOPE where quite advanced already. This was good because we were able to make good progress towards a complete multi-project environment solution. The basic understanding of many of the guys was good and the main managers had very good understanding.

An important point was made that CCPM is not just a bunch of tools and processes; instead its aim is to help managers (especially Project Managers) manage the relationships, behaviours and risk that are all important in the success of a project.

In a wider sense, the CCPM solution is intended to be a communication and negotiation tool. The benefits that this gives are enormous. The project CC plan communicates to everyone in the team and also the wider organisation (e.g. production, sales and senior management). Everyone now knows the timing of the project and their part in it. A lot of unnecessary conflict can be avoided when a plan is placed in front of someone. Instead of arguing with the Design dept they are now trying to work with the CC plan.

Another insight is that the plan should initially convey the most logical and safe sequence possible. If this plan is too long and a short cut is required then at least everyone is aware of the risk.

In the CCPM installs I have been involved with it and heard about, it always amazes the participants that they only have 1 or 2 generic CC project plans. This makes the total project management task much easier. Most times a generic project can be used with only minor modification for all projects.

The staggered start board is a very useful device for smoothing the load on the Design dept and also for communicating with the customer (internal & external). Now the customer can choose the order and priority they give to each of the projects - instead of the usual "I want them all now!!"

[noel.macken]

Another insight from install week....

"Wriggle room"

The solutions that are TOC based are very robust and tolerant to variation yet there are certain disciplines that must be followed. It became obvious when designing the systems that people must follow certain well defined actions otherwise the whole lot fails. These actions are for example, regular project updates, taking actions when the system suggests that there is a risk of project failure.

Removing the "wriggle room" is an integral part of the CCPM system. Tasks are deliberately set with very tight duration times, this stops the student syndrome, polishing and discourages multi-tasking. It is also important that each element on the NCN (necessary conditions network, precursor to the CC plan) and the CC plan is written in a form that makes it very clear what the "done" state is. This needs to be clear for the resource completing the task and the resource(s) accepting the output. This clarity saves false-starts, rework and communication problems.

[petert]

Iteration Buffer
Noel, can you add any insights into the problem of "iterations", especially during testing, where there is a world of unknown?

[petert]

A massive insight using Buffer Management

today, reality became very different to the plan.
Project Managers suffer hugely from replanning and rescheduling
using CCPM, the big win using a template, is there is no need to replan or reschedule
The CC path altered to a feeding path because the task as set out, became different.
the old CC was able to proceed, but was now a feeding path, and the CC after the previous dependancy, now became the new progressing CC
the new feeding buffer was redrawn adn rebuffered and teh dependancies reset
the buffer consumptions were re analysed
and a decouple caused a massive claim back of buffer, so much so that of the original Due Date, and 50% completion, the project will probably come in about 1 month early, that is a 30% reduction.

the insight is that using buffer management, we acted, and could tell how much impact the intervention had, and now we can focus on something else. a true focusing process, and we did not need to replan nor change tasks. this process took about 10 minutes!!

[petert]

Project Completion
The project on CCPM is now complete, well almost.
Done = all the product has been delivered to the customer, and this has almost happened.
But what did happen today, was project celebration with all the the teams who were involved
purchasing
production control
design
production assembly, many departments
admin

the project was deleivered 1 week later than the week originally agreed to before Christmas 2009
an extra week was granted when the customer saw the difficulty placed by raw materials being hard to get ex China. a single part of a complex unit help up final delivery. that part was 4 weeks late. The realisation that this part was going to set the date of the project, occurred 6 weeks ago.
The buffer management went from Z3 to Z1/Z0 immediately, and from that moment on, every delay on the critical chain, became a delay to the project. the visibility of this became a powerful tool for making decisions. the units were produced, breaking the production rule of "do not start unless all parts are available", and the missing parts were able to be retrofitted, when they arrived. these parts arrived last week, and the retrofitting occurred in the weekend. The product is now available to be shipped to Australia, and is being shipped now.

The design manager uses "buffer management" as his primary tool, and without it, he has no intuition of where proejcts are late and how they collectively impact the design resource.

when the parts were going to be late, the customer was advised of the impact, and the customer granted due date relief.

funny, but this project would have been delivered early, had it not been for these late parts. it was going well, with 3/3rds of the buffer intact until the last 15% of the proejct time.

The buffer management had a large positive imapct on how the team reacted, and given teh damage caused, the team could understand the impact and take corrective action to "change teh course of history"

A BIG Well DOne.