Comments on: 5 Practices for Managing (Constrained) Projects Successfully http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/ The magazine for the project age Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:21:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Claude Emond http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-340 Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-340 Nice wrap up from all three of you. Joe's first 3 out of 4 conclusions could be summed up as: 'SCRUM meets TOC'. I remember reading not to long ago an entry from Frank in te New Grange Forum asking WHY TOC-Critical Chain Project Management did not seem to be considered as part of Agile-Lean approaches in the eyes of certain others participants in the forum. I think, from what I read from you three, that the right question is not WHY but rather HOW they can be linked together. Joe gave the answer twice already : 'TOC tells you where, Lean (Agile) tells you how'(I added Agile as being family to Lean). And I guess it is the same answer for many approaches, be it the use of detailed WBS (alluded to by Hal in his list of recommendations) or other 'traditional-coined' approaches. (in the WBS case, Joe's statement could be :'WBS tells you what, Lean (Agile) tells you how'). Maybe if people were asking the right questions, like you did, before giving answers, it would be a lot easier to have real converging conversations, to build bridges between paradigms and come up with very useful things as you three just did. After all, Douglas Adam's answer to 'Life, the Universe and Everything' was 42 !!! But nobody really knows the exact wording of the question ! ;-) I enjoyed every bit of it. Three personal Cheers for each of you (that makes 9 of them) Claude Nice wrap up from all three of you. Joe’s first 3 out of 4 conclusions could be summed up as: ‘SCRUM meets TOC’.

I remember reading not to long ago an entry from Frank in te New Grange Forum asking WHY TOC-Critical Chain Project Management did not seem to be considered as part of Agile-Lean approaches in the eyes of certain others participants in the forum. I think, from what I read from you three, that the right question is not WHY but rather HOW they can be linked together. Joe gave the answer twice already : ‘TOC tells you where, Lean (Agile) tells you how’(I added Agile as being family to Lean).

And I guess it is the same answer for many approaches, be it the use of detailed WBS (alluded to by Hal in his list of recommendations) or other ‘traditional-coined’ approaches. (in the WBS case, Joe’s statement could be :’WBS tells you what, Lean (Agile) tells you how’).

Maybe if people were asking the right questions, like you did, before giving answers, it would be a lot easier to have real converging conversations, to build bridges between paradigms and come up with very useful things as you three just did.

After all, Douglas Adam’s answer to ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ was 42 !!! But nobody really knows the exact wording of the question ! ;-)

I enjoyed every bit of it.

Three personal Cheers for each of you (that makes 9 of them)

Claude

]]> by: Hal http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-341 Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-341 Claude, Thanks for you encouragement. We had fun doing it. Claude,

Thanks for you encouragement. We had fun doing it.

]]> by: Bolivar Senior http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-342 Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2003/04/17/146/#comment-342 Hal: Generally I am a batch reader of your blog. I allow a week or so to accumulate and then have my fix. Furthermore, I rarely visit your website, since I read your postings as email messages in my Palm. All this is the fanfare to say that the TOC series has been outstanding, especially combined with Joe and Frank blogs. I propose that you combine and preserve the series. Don’t let the entries die in a blog archive; it would be near-criminal. I have my own strong opinions about TOC, generally positive, and about Critical Chain (CCM), generally negative. The problem with TOC is that it is frequently treated as a cult by its “followers,” who insist that salvation can only be granted to those that “believe” wholesale in Goldratt (sorry, today being Good Friday I feel mystical). I noticed that none of you addressed CCM in detail. Good for you. While CCM is good at discussing some CPM limitations, it offers poor alternatives to them (In fact, you may remember that I wrote a full-fledged discussion of CCM for Neenan back when you were their CEO). What if you take a respite, and discuss CCM at some point? Regards, Bolivar Hal:

Generally I am a batch reader of your blog. I allow a week or so to accumulate and then have my fix. Furthermore, I rarely visit your website, since I read your postings as email messages in my Palm. All this is the fanfare to say that the TOC series has been outstanding, especially combined with Joe and Frank blogs. I propose that you combine and preserve the series. Don’t let the entries die in a blog archive; it would be near-criminal.

I have my own strong opinions about TOC, generally positive, and about Critical Chain (CCM), generally negative. The problem with TOC is that it is frequently treated as a cult by its “followers,” who insist that salvation can only be granted to those that “believe” wholesale in Goldratt (sorry, today being Good Friday I feel mystical). I noticed that none of you addressed CCM in detail. Good for you. While CCM is good at discussing some CPM limitations, it offers poor alternatives to them (In fact, you may remember that I wrote a full-fledged discussion of CCM for Neenan back when you were their CEO). What if you take a respite, and discuss CCM at some point?

Regards,

Bolivar

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