Critical Chain Method (CCM) – A Short Definition

Critical Chain Method (CCM) – A Short Definition
By Sivaraj Dhanasekaran

Schedule Network Analysis is one of the tools and techniques of Schedule Development process. Critical Chain Method is one of the method used to perform Schedule Network Analysis.

This method is used to prepare the project schedule when limited or restricted resources are available.

In this method, the PM usually schedule all or most of the high risk or critical activities in the earlier stage of the project schedule. This allows the critical tasks to be completed early as well as gives buffers to handle unexpected problems if arises. Also the PM will combine several tasks in to one task and assign one resource to handle all.

The steps involved:

  1. Construct the Schedule Network Diagram
  2. Define dependencies
  3. Define constraints
  4. Calculate critical path for the project
  5. Apply resource availability

The critical path will change once the resource availability has been applied.

Dhanasekaran, Sivaraj is a certified PMP and works as a Senior Project Manager in one of the leading MNC banks in Singapore. He has over 13 years IT experience and handled banking projects as well as managed production support team for complex Treasury applications for various MNC banks.

He loves to share his experience and knowledge gained as Project Manager and also providing guidance to people who wanted to obtain PMP certification. He runs a project management forum at www.sgpm.wordpress.com.

PMHut Team

PMHut Team

PMHut.com is a website dedicated to providing PM articles, detailed project management software reviews, and the latest news for the most popular web-based collaboration tools.

1 Response

  1. Avatar Jamie says:

    Weak/misleading article. Critical Chain is the title of the 1997 book by Eli Goldratt – the person who coined the phrase Critical Chain Project Management (not to be confused with Critical Path). How any definition of Critical Chain can fail to mention Goldratt is beyond me. In fact the article shows that author does not understand what Critical Chain Project Management is. Do your research!

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