Achieving project success

using Theory of Constraints beyond

Critical Chain Project Management
PhD Research proposal
Maryam Mirzaei
School of Management
Supervisors:
Prof. Vicky Mabin
Dr. Jim Sheffield
Date: 28 Feb 2013

Overview
Introduction
Theory of Constraints (TOC)
Critical Chain Project Management
(CCPM)
Moving beyond CCPM
Research question
Methodology

Introduction
Motivation

Project management as my research area

Project management as my career path
Critical chain project management as the answer
Viewing my research as a project raised new questions

Significance of the Study

Project management is the most significant characteristic of the
modern organizations
Scholars call for new approaches in project management
Theory of constraints has provided breakthrough solution in many
areas
Project classification is an emerging knowledge base

TOC
What it is , where it has
emerged
how it deal with
uncertainty ,

(Goldratt & Cox, 1984)

Manufacturing

TOC

Throughput Accounting

Marketing

Strategic planning
Distribution

CCPM

Assumptions:
Known tasks
Known durations
Known capacities (machine and human)
Resource conflict (scarce resources)
Structured network (precedence relations)

CCPM

CCPM
Single Project
Multi project
Prerequisite 1 - Identify
Collection of projects
The Project
the System and its
(Deac & Vrincut, 2010; Globerson, 2000;
(Leach, 1999; Steyn, 2001)
Lechler et al., 2005)
Purpose
Prerequisite 2 Duration
Profit (Throughput)
Determine the Systems (Leach, 1999; Steyn, 2001) (Deac & Vrincut, 2010; Globerson, 2000;
Lechler et al., 2005)
Measures
Bottleneck resource (Budd
Longest
chain
of
& Cerveny, 2010; Cohen, Mandelbaum, &
1. IDENTIFY the system's
activity (Goldratt, 1997; Shtub, 2004; Herroelen & Leus, 2001;
constraint
Huang, Chen, Li, & Tsai, 2012; Leach,
Leach, 2004, p. 106)
2004 ;Newbold, 1998)

2. Decide how to
EXPLOIT the system's
constraint
3. SUBORDINATE
everything else to the
above decision

No Idle time for

Remove the
bottleneck resource (Budd
individual
& Cerveny, 2010; Cohen, Mandelbaum, &
buffer(Goldratt, 1997, p. Shtub, 2004; Herroelen & Leus, 2001;
chapter 13)

Add feeding
buffer
(Cox et al., 2012, p. 76)

4. ELEVATE the system's

(Leach, 1999; Steyn, 2001)

Huang, Chen, Li, & Tsai, 2012; Leach,

2004 ;Newbold, 1998)

Add capacity buffer

(Budd & Cerveny, 2010; Cohen,
Mandelbaum, & Shtub, 2004; Herroelen
& Leus, 2001; Huang, Chen, Li, & Tsai,
2012; Leach, 2004 ;Newbold, 1998)

CCPM
,

Endorsements of
CCPM
Direction for project management in the 21st century
(Newbold, 1998; Steyn, 2002; Vrincut, 2009)

Numerous successful applications

(Bevilacqua, Ciarapica, & Giacchetta, 2009; Hwang, Chang, & Li, 2010; Leach, 1999; Newbold, 2008; Paseuth,
2003; Realization Technologies, Inc, 2010; Smith, 2012; Srinivasan, Best, & Chandrasekaran, 2007; Stratton,
1998; Umble & Umble, 2000; Viljoen, 1997)

Simple and workable

(Newbold, 1998; Steyn, 2002; Vrincut, 2009; Raz et al., 2003)

Stable schedule, Minimises work in progress

(Herroelen, Leus, & Demeulemeester, 2002; PMI, 2008; Woeppel, 2005)

Addresses duration uncertainty well

(Elton, 1998; Herroelen et al., 2002; Herroelen & Leus, 2001; Raz, Barnes, & Dvir, 2003)

Takes human factors into account

(Goldratt, 1997; Huang et al., 2012; Leach, 1999; Newbold, 1998; Woeppel, 2006)

Criticisms on
CCPM
Not applicable to all kind of projects
(Mckay & Morton, 1998; Raz et al., 2003)

Not innovative
(Trietsch, 2005)

Lack of mathematical analysis

(Ashtiani, Jalali, Aryanezhad, & Makui, 2007; Jian-Bing, Hong, & Ji-Hai, 2008; Kuo, Chang, & Huang, 2009)

Creating a good baseline schedule is not easy

(Raz et al., 2003)

Rejects data in later stages of the project

(Dietrich & Lehtonen, 2005; Cohen et al., 2004)

Assumptions need to be clarified

(Hill, Thomas, & Allen, 2000; Raz et al., 2003)

Success of a single project is measured in term of its

duration

Project success

Success factors

Success criteria

Project managers expertise (Rubin & Seelig, 1967)

Time/ Cost /Quality

Top management support (Avots, 1969),

Ten key success factors (Slevin and Pinto, 1987)
Project team skills (Brown, 2001)
96 different variables

(Shenhar and Dvir,1996)

Grouped success factors (Belassi & Tukel, 1996)

Senior management commitment/ organizational structure
and risk management (Lester, 1998)
Defining the project team (Abdel-Hamid, Sengupta, and Swett, 1999)
Documentation-based learning (Schindler & Eppler, 2003)
Quality of planning, goal changes, and plan-changes

(Arye ,2000)
(Dvir and

Lechler, 2004)

More comprehensive success factors (Ika, 2009)

Necessary conditions versus
Young, Irandoost and Land, 2011)

Meeting the design

goals/benefit to the
development of the
company/benefit to end user

sufficient conditions

End-user satisfaction /
customer-satisfaction (Hoegl and
Gemuenden, 2001)

(Poon,

11

Project success
Success and ways of achieving it will differ
based on:

Project life cycle

Portfolio influence
Project type (classification)

12

Research
How can the application of TOC to project
Questions
management move beyond CCPM?
How are project constraints influenced by its
characteristics?
How are project constraints influenced by its portfolio?
Why can certain available / proposed models or methods
address certain types of constraints better?

13

CCPM project
typology
and

Methodology

Research method:

Case study
According to Yin how
using case study

and why questions could be answered

Case study as a research method allows

existing phenomenon

in-depth analysis of an

The nature of research is exploratory as there is no assumed

hypothesis of what the constraints should be. And the research is the
first of its type (looking for different types of constraint in different types
of projects)
15

Methodology
Project management is action oriented
Prescriptive research seeks to help people solve practical problems
(Ahlemann et al., 2012; Denyer, Tranfield, & Aken, 2008; Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, Jackson, &
Easterby-Smith, 2008).

Prescriptive research is the heart of project management discipline (Ahlemann et al.,

2012)

Design Sciences Paradigm

(Denyer et al., 2008; Ahlemann et al., 2013; Denyer et al., 2008; Simon, 1996)

technology-oriented counterpart to natural16

Methodology
Research approach: Abductive
Deduction
an analytic process based on the application of
general rules to
particular cases with the inference of a result
Induction
synthetic reasoning which infers the rule from the
case and the
Result
Abduction
another form of synthetic inference but of the case
from a rule
(Adapted from Dubois & Gadde, 2002; Kovacs & Spens,
and a result
2005)

Data Analysis

Logic models

Intermediate Objective map:

A system level logic tree based on
necessary condition relationships (Dettmer,
2007)

Current reality tree:

a logic-based tool for using
cause-and-effect relationships
to determine root problems
that cause the undesirable
effects of the system (Cox, 2003;
Goldratt, 1994; Kim, Mabin, & Davies, 2008;
Mabin, 1999; Scheinkopf, 1999)

18

Case investigation
process

Multiple sources of data

will be used including:

Documentation
Structured Interviews
Semi structure
Interviews

Project
portfolios

Collective success of single

projects (Artto and Dietrich, 2007; Martinsuo and Lehtonen,
2007; Platje, Seidel, & Wadman, 1994)

Alignment with organization

strategy both deliberate and
emergent (Boyd, Gupta, & Sussman, 2001; Meskendahl,
2010, 2010; Muller, Martinsuo, & Blomquist, 2008; Pearson, 1990;
Pellegrinelli, 1997)

Balanced along a range of

dimensions (Archer & Ghasemzadeh, 1999; Cooper,
Edgett, & Kleinschmidt, 2001; Killen et al., 2008; Mikkola,2001)

Profitability
(Cooper et al., 2001; Chang, Kan, & Wang, 2010)
20

Project
classification

Matrix classifications:

Two dimensions: End and Means (Pearson, 1990)

Three dimensions: SoftwareHardware / strategic goal of

the project / technological uncertainty (D Dvir et al., 1998)

Five dimensions:

1. Strategic goal of the project

2. Market uncertainty
3. Technological uncertainty
4. System scope
5. Pace
(Shenhar, 2001; Shenhar et al., 2002)

21

Data Analysis

Pilot case study 1

Root cause matches

literature

22

Data Analysis

Pilot case study 2

23

Data Analysis
Research Quality
Internal Validity
Classification of data: Project profile
TOCs tools to scrutinise logic diagrams (Dettmer, 2007)

External Validity
Generalizability : from single case to type of projects

Reliability of the results

Data base : Tables and diagrams
Multi-source data
Chain of evidence

24

Schedule

Contributions
Opportunity for new TOC applications to emerge to
address projects that have not been addressed by
CCPM
Identification of 2-4 specific types of constraints
that is common in a group of projects
Contribution to classification models by describing
the types of constraints that exist in a few different
classes of projects
Suitability of new models can be investigated as
per project typology

Anticipated
Issues/Limitations
Issues
Access to projects with required
characteristics
Access to multiple interviews with project
manager

Limitations
Possible number of cases
Predicted diversity of constraints
Generalisability

 Thanks!

Questions

Overview-Theoretical

Overview-Theoretical

Methodology

Research approach:

Abductive

Kovacs & Spens, 2005

38

(Hallgren, 2012)

Assumption challenging research increases

the chance to create interesting theories
(Sandberg & Alvesson, 2011).

Five dimensions Matrix

Dimension
Strategic
goal of the
project
Market
uncertainty

Extensi
on

Strategi Problem
c
solving

Technologic
al
uncertainty

Low

System
scope
Pace

Assembl System Array

y
Regular Fast/co Blitz/Critica
mpetitiv l
e

Utility Resear
ch

Derivati Platform Breakthrou

ve
gh
Medium High

Super
high