Critical Chain (Book Report Assignment)
1. Provide the definition of critical path and critical chain. How they differ?
We can define a Critical path as “as the longest, time-wise, chain or network of dependent steps to complete a project. Therefore, CP will estimate the required time to finish a project and any delay in CP will delay the completion of the project. Critical chain can be defined as the longest chain of dependent steps with the consideration of resource constraint. Therefore, we can conclude that CC is different than CP as the CC depends on the path and the resource and not only the path which the case in CP.
2. What are inventory buffers analogous to in project management? List various kinds of buffers used to manage projects and describe where each of them should be located?
In project management, an inventory buffer is analogous to time buffer which is created as a safety net for the total project completion time. There are several types of buffers used in to manage a project and they are:
• Project buffer is located at the end of a critical path before the completion date and is made of the times (safety) that we cut from the steps in the CP and added up to create a project buffer.
• Feeding buffers are created to protect against any delay on paths of tasks that are not part of the critical part but eventually feed into the CP. Therefore, managers have to minimize the risk of any delay in the CP by inserting this buffer in the tasks that are not critical but will merge with the CP tasks. They are inserted at the end of these non-critical steps or tasks.
• Resource buffers are signals or alerts that is located alongside the critical path and in particular in front of a task that contains an important resource. The job of this buffer is to guarantee the availability of the resource whether it was a human resource (skills) or physical resource (materials, machines) when they are needed.
3. Describe common practices to estimate...