Software project management
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The document discusses avoiding multitasking in project management by applying the Theory of Constraints (TOC). TOC involves identifying the constraint resource, exploiting it, then subordinating other processes. For multi-project environments, TOC uses a synchronizer to stagger project launches and minimize resource peaks. It schedules projects through a synchronization schedule and capacity buffers to provide priority and absorb variability while maximizing organizational throughput. Applying TOC allows focusing on the current task and honoring organizational priorities and promises.
Software project management
- 1. Software Project Management Program Management Theory of constraints Balas Adina-Georgiana
- 2. Program Management The way to get something done is to "just do it." Focus on the task and get it done. For those who work in organizations that rely on programs of projects, multi-project environments where resources are shared across a number of projects, there are usually a lot of things that need to get done. An environment of many projects typically generates many priorities for project resources and managers alike and can make that focus difficult to achieve.
- 3. The five focusing steps Identify the constraint (the resource or policy that prevents the organization from obtaining more of the goal) Decide how to exploit the constraint (get the most capacity out of the constrained process) Subordinate all other processes to above decision (align the whole system or organization to support the decision made above) Elevate the constraint (make other major changes needed to break the constraint) If, as a result of these steps, the constraint has moved, return to Step 1.
- 4. Multitasking In an effort to take advantage of valuable new opportunities, multi-project organizations tend to launch projects as soon as they are understood, concurrently with existing projects, simultaneously with other new efforts, and unfortunately too often, without sufficient regard to the capacity of the organization. A common result is that the responsibility for sorting out an array of conflicting priorities often falls to project resources and their managers. One concern coming from this situation is that the resultant locally set priorities may not be in synch with each other or, more importantly, with the global priorities of the larger organization. A common result of trying to deal with this tug-of-war of multiple priorities is the practice of multitasking, assigning resources to more than one significant task during a particular window of time, to try to move all the projects along.
- 5. Multitasking In addition, many project teams rely on early starts of projects and their paths of tasks to try to assure and achieve timely project completion. These early starts, also driven partially by the desire to see "progress" on all open projects, often translate to additional pressure on resources to multitask between tasks and between projects. As a result, these practices of early starts and multitasking have been recognized as common practice in many organizations, and even institutionalized in project management software tools, which typically default to "ASAP" scheduling, and which offer "features" to apply "fractional resources" to tasks and to "split" tasks.
- 6. Multitasking True progress in a project happens only at the handoffs between resources, when the work completed by one resource allows another resource to start its work. To the extent that one project's tasks are interrupted by work being performed on other projects' tasks, the first project is delayed. The common practice of multitasking results in multiplying the time it takes to complete tasks, delaying true progress in projects.
- 7. Avoiding multitasking The pressure to multitask comes from the combination of having more than one task in one's in-box and the lack of clear priority for the best use of one's attention. If we could systematically both provide clear priorities and minimize the queue, then the devastating impact of multitasking on projects and, more importantly, on organizational performance would be minimized. Applying the management philosophy known as the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to the realm of project management provides a whole system view of the challenge. TOC suggests that components of the system being managed subordinate their efforts to the larger system of which they are a part. The management of tasks and the resources that perform them must subordinate to the needs of projects, and the management of projects must subordinate to the needs of the multi-project organization to which they belong.
- 8. Avoiding multitasking The TOC-based solution for managing single projects, whether standalone or as part of a portfolio of projects, is known as Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management . It provides part of the answer for priority aspect of the question "What should I work on?" which, if not addressed appropriately, drives multi-tasking behaviors in multi-project environments. A critical chain schedule removes the pressure of artificial task due dates from the concerns of project resources.
- 9. Synchronization When faced with assessing system capacity, many organizations typically go into a major data-collection and number-crunching exercise in an attempt to balance the availability of all resource types with the demand on the system. TOC tends to focus on maximizing flow of work through a system rather than balancing capacity. This higher-level view of system capacity rather than resource capacity leads to the conclusion that it is enough to keep as little as one resource effectively utilized to manage and maximize the throughput of the system. The role of the synchronizer is to set the pace at which projects are launched into the system. They provide a stagger that is intended to allow overlap of project schedules, yet minimize peak loading on all resources and the pressure to multitask that is the usual result of these peak loads. Once a synchronizer has been identified, a synchronization schedule for the multi-project program can be put together that, combined with individual critical chain project schedules, will provide the basis for responsive, realistic and reliable project promises.
- 10. Synchronization In addition to the ordering and staggering of projects provided by the synchronizer, the synchronization schedule must also take into consideration the fact that not all projects are consistent in the use of the synchronizer. This may result in occasional windows of time when the stagger is insufficient to protect other resources from peak loading and pressures to multitask. To prevent this situation, additional stagger is added between the projects in the form of a capacity buffer .
- 11. Conclusions By applying the TOC prescription for multi-project/program management, an organization honors its priorities by scheduling its program through the strategically defined precedence of the synchronization schedule. Project managers avoid unnecessary changes in priority by relying on buffers to absorb most of the normal, expected variability in the execution of tasks and projects. Resource managers find clear direction and priority for assignment of tasks in the status of the buffers, which indicate the best use for available resources to support the promises made by the organization. And resources have a single priority, the current task to which they are assigned. Without the distraction of pressures to multitask or to meet false priorities of task due dates, they can concentrate on the task at and "just do it," do just it, and do it justice to assure a quality hand-off, successful projects, and maximum throughput for the organization.
- 12. References http:// www.focusedperformance.com/articles/multipm.html http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints