Critical Chain - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [64]
"They've started to believe that they can finish on time. Now that's impressive."
"Too good to be true," Ted speaks up for the first time. "I've listened carefully to what you've done, and all I have heard is that you moved some numbers around. How can it have such an impact?"
Not like Mark and Ruth, Fred is smiling. "Moving some numbers around may have a big impact. Ted, suppose that some numbers are moved from your paycheck to somebody else's. Will it have an impact?"
Ted joins the laughter. Then he clarifies, "Mark, I understand all of that, but there must be something more. What actually are you doing differently?"
"Nothing." Then, as an afterthought, he adds, "But you have to realize that the whole attitude has changed. As I already stressed, there are no more false alarms. People don't put pressure on others just because their people do not have enough to do."
Ruth steps forward. "There is another big difference. We don't have milestones anymore. It's not like it was before, when you knew you were supposed to complete your step in two weeks, so what's the rush. Now, it's different. Either you don't start a step, because it's too early, or, if a path is clear to be worked on, you work on it as fast as you can. You see, we trimmed the times to the extent that people are not sure anymore that they can finish the step on time. They don't dare procrastinate. I would say that the ‘student syndrome' basically disappeared. Don't you think so, Mark?"
"Yes, of course. You see, Ted? Before, when we used milestones, and you knew that you had two weeks to complete a step, the two weeks were yours. I, as project leader, couldn't do much to push you to finish earlier. Moreover, if I came after one week and started to press, even inquired, you would have reacted as if I were out of line. ‘There is still a week to go, what do you want?'
"Now it's different. We trimmed the times. Now people know that there is a fair chance that they will not finish the step on time. They fully understand why I'm concerned, why I came early to find out where they stand."
"That's makes sense," Ted concludes. "That will have an impact." Then he confesses, "I must say that only now do I see the human behavior aspect. I understood why we should trim the time estimate from a ninety percent chance of completing ontime to only a fifty percent chance, but only now do I see the full ramifications. In retrospect, it's obvious."
"If you do what makes sense," Ruth comments, "you find out that it makes sense from many other aspects as well." Mark is not ready yet to dive into philosophical remarks. "There is something else that should be mentioned. Multi-tasking. Eliminating the false alarm and actually shrinking the time it takes to perform a step contributed a lot to the reduction of multi-tasking. People do not jump so frequently from task to task. There is much less nervousness. How much does it contribute to the shrinkage of the lead time? I don't know, but it must be substantial."
Ruth turns to me. "Professor Silver, you visit us every week. What is your impression?"
I can only talk about what I have seen, and you can't see much in one-hour visits. "I'm in no position to evaluate by how much multi-tasking has declined. One thing is clear, though. People are more focused."
"The project is much more focused, that's for sure," Mark confirms.
"May I say something?" Fred rhetorically asks Mark. "I think that one of the major things we did was putting the resource buffer in place."
"Yes," Mark says. "Previously it was very common for everything to be ready for a step, but the people wouldn't be. They were busy working on something else. We decided that this would never happen for the steps on the critical path. Now, on the critical path, when everything else is ready we must make sure, in advance, that the resources will be ready." "How do you do that?" Ted is surprised. "This idea of resource buffer was the only thing out of what we said that I thought was totally impractical.