response to the questions

Managing uncertainty is important to project management because as Leach (2014) pointed out, “Everyone knows that it only takes one task to be late on the critical path to make the whole project late” (p. 101). The problem is the resulting response from individual task owners to pad their task estimates and management to further stress high demand resources (p. 102) in response. This foundation coupled with Parkinson’s law, using up all the available task time (including contingency time) regardless of need, and the Student Syndrome of wasting the task contingency time by not starting until the task is urgent, dooms a project to finish late and over budget (pp. 102 – 104).

By taking out the contingency built into each step and moving it to the end, CCPM forces better focus on each task causing the owner to start sooner and to complete it with less multitasking (p. 109). This shortens the overall schedule and the time wasted due to Parkinson’s Law and the Student Syndrome, is now available to the project manager to apply where issues actually occur and contingency is needed. Since the overall project timeline is no longer stretched out, when a problem does arise, the tendency to fire fight and reduce scope can be replaced with more rational problem solving to address the issue. Additionally, managing projects with actual task time visibility will provide better data for improvement efforts, leading to a more competitive process overall.

CCPM gives the project manager hope by providing a solution that mitigates undesirable project effects and allows the project to be truly managed rather than be the victim of circumstance.

Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management. (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Artech House.

Question. Leach (2014) cited Peter Marris on page 107 who argued that multitasking is a social construct used by the powerful on the less powerful to shield them from uncertainty. How much truth is evident in this perspective and in what ways is this apparent in modern business? Is it really possible to reduce the amount of expected multitasking?

I never thought of multi-tasking as a way for leadership to shield themselves from uncertainty, but it makes some sense (Leach, p.107). If I give my workers five things to do and say they are all the same priority and they need to get them all done by the same time, then it buys me time to figure out the uncertainty within each task. I have seen leaders do this tactic more times than not, but never once thought it was to shield themselves. I do think that it is possible to reduce the amount of expected multi-tasking by attaching a priority to the tasks, setting different timelines for completion or empowering the workers to prioritize themselves based off some established guidelines. In Nuclear Missile Operations we are expected to multitask, but more importantly effectively prioritize and complete one task to completion based off guidelines. We use a helpful acronym to help us prioritize quickly, LEWSFO. L-Life (personal and life of the equipment), E-Emergency War Orders, W-Weapon System Safety, S-Security, F-Faults, O-Other. This way we can accomplish the highest priority task first and to completion before moving on to a lower priority task. This ensures that we are able to launch our missiles if required to.

Thoughts?

-Steven

Reference:

Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management. (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Artech House. Inc.

Multitasking as a Social Construct

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The readings so far illustrate a lot about multitasking, with some pretty elaborate examples promoting the idea that multitasking as hindering productivity. Businesses could better utilize this if the proper infrastructure was in place and utilization of CCPM and TOC as we touched on last week. Businesses, or more directly the managers, not already utilizing this would need to be trained to a new mindset and be goal driven. The transition of this change not to multitask is not simple given the pressure to multitask commonly expressed by management. I feel that Peter Marris is correct when he discusses multitasking to be a social construct that the powerful (managers) use on the less powerful (workers). As Leach states, “management takes advantage of the lower level resources in the organization by creating the pressure that leads to multitasking” (2014, p. 107). When workers feel pressure from management to get several projects complete, this is when multitasking is put into play.

One way to reduce expected multitasking in a business when laying out the plan for new projects is dedicating the proper manning and equipment from start to finish. This could mean not having your “best” worker, engineer, or manager on each and every task as would be desired in most circumstances. Instead have your less knowledgeable or experienced worker, engineer, or manager working or leading the project from start to finish, without interruption to cause multitasking. This is also potentially a benefit of the company to develop more workers giving them experience and gaining knowledge.

Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management (3rd ed.). Bostin, MA: Artech House.

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