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If your business suffers from . . . Projects over budget, not providing planned specs or scope Too long lead times of projects Chaotic hoop-jumping and midnight oil-burning to meet project due dates Reluctance to take on new projects
. . . then chances are good that your constraint is the way that your projects are managed. Typically, projects are managed by focusing on the delivery of the tasks that make up the project, in the seemingly reasonable belief that if these tasks are done on time, the project will be done on time as well. But all too often, project management becomes a chaotic exercise, resulting in inordinate pressure to meet task due dates and frequent replanning of the project. Apparently, in too many cases, and for a variety of reasons, the long-established strategy of focusing on task completion does not seem to work too well.
Too often, this "safety" conflict is addressed by risk management efforts that provides little more than compromise or "optimization." Trim a little safety in one task, risk a little lateness against the promise. Add a little safety in another task, extend the project a little. There is never really a satisfactory compromise. In any event, most project schedules then take these negotiated compromise numbers for task estimates and nail them to the calendar, resulting in target dates that resources shoot for to complete their tasks. As soon as a target date is set, the stage is set for Parkinson's Law ("Work expands to fill the time allotted for it.") to set in, resulting in the rarity of beating or even meeting task due dates and jeopardy for the entire project. And this is only one such conflict. There are a variety of others. Consider the plethora of conflicts and dilemmas in a multi-project environment. No wonder project management is such a challenging endeavor.