Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) is more powerful and resource-driven than Critical Path Project Management. CCPM is based on methods and algorithms derived from the Theory of Constraints. The Critical Chain is the sequence of both precedence- and resource-dependent tasks that prevents a project from being completed in a shorter time, given finite resources. If (non-human) resources are always available in unlimited quantities, then a project’s Critical Chain is identical to its Critical Path.

You can view this PowerPoint presentation (with audio included) to learn more about Critical Chain Project Management.

By leveraging Aurora’s sophisticated scheduling system with CCPM theory, a much more robust solution has been developed: Aurora-CCPM. Resource constraints (e.g., available equipment, space, and human resources) are very important to the implementation of the Critical Chain method because it more heavily considers them when compared to Critical Path. Fortunately, Aurora-CCPM takes into account resource requirements, a variety of constraints, and can be adapted to pertinent domain knowledge. This is especially critical during the execution phase of a CCPM plan as real-time updates arrive regarding the status of the hundreds or thousands of tasks that make up the plan.

Aurora-CCPM greatly enhances the practicality and power of the Critical Chain method:

• Critical Chain can now be applied to projects encompassing thousands of tasks.
• It can also be used to handle complex emergency-type situations, where new tasks are inserted during the actual execution of the plan.