About this Presentation
Buffers are a common response to variation. Like variation, they are everywhere, including in project plans. Many people feel a conflict in project management between predictability, which requires safety time or buffers; and motivation, which requires squeezing out safety time. People usually either ignore the conflict, picking one side or the other; or they compromise, by adding some safety time but never enough. In this presentation, Rob Newbold discusses why these standard approaches create the very problems they are intended to eliminate. He shows how to evaporate the cloud to get predictability, motivation, and speed. To get there, he presents a rigorous definition of buffers and gives some surprising examples in order to show you that buffers are much more common than you may think. He concludes by showing how buffered critical chain schedules and some new visualizations can help you to motivate your teams.
What Will You Learn
To help you get the most value from this session, we’ve highlighted a few key points. These takeaways capture the main ideas and practical insights from the presentation, making it easier for you to review, reflect, and apply what you’ve learned.
Buffers are crucial in managing variation in project management and they have both costs and benefits.
Deadlines often obscure variation and lead to the misuse of buffers.
Positive, team-oriented motivations can be more effective than negative ones in project management.
Instructor(s)
Rob Newbold
Rob Newbold, CEO and founder of ProChain Solutions, is one of the world’s leading experts on Critical Chain project scheduling and management. He has forty years’ experience developing process improvements in various fields. Rob is a frequent writer and speaker and holds degrees from Stanford University, SUNY Stony Brook, and Yale University. He is the author of the books Islands of Stability (ProChain Press, 2019), The Project Manifesto (ProChain Press, 2014), The Billion Dollar Solution (ProChain Press, 2008) and Project Management in the Fast Lane (St. Lucie Press, 1998) and was a contributing author to the TOC Handbook from McGraw-Hill. He was presented with a TOCICO Lifetime Achievement award by TOCICO in 2023 and a TOC Excellence Award by TOCPA in 2024. ProChain Solutions has been a leading provider of software, methodology, and implementation services for Critical Chain solutions since 1997.
Ms Alka Wadhwa
Alka Wadhwa is an experienced consultant and process improvement expert with over 24 years of expertise in the Theory of Constraints (TOC), Lean Six Sigma, and organizational performance optimization. She has successfully led projects in healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing, driving significant improvements such as a 67% boost in hospital operations and a 140% increase in outpatient visits.
Previously, Alka Wadhwa spent 17+ years at GE Global Research Center, where she led initiatives to enhance various GE businesses through advanced technologies, process redesign, and system optimization. Founder of Better Solutions Consulting, LLC, she specializes in using TOC, Six Sigma, and data analytics to streamline operations and build high-performance teams.
Her work has earned her multiple accolades, including the Empire State Award of Excellence in healthcare.
Dr Gary Wadhwa
Dr. Gary Wadhwa is a Board Certified Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon with extensive experience in the field. He completed his Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery training at Montefiore Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY, and has served as an Attending at prestigious institutions like St. Peters Hospitals, Ellis Hospital, and Beth Israel Hospital in NY. With a career spanning over two decades, he was the former CEO and President of a group specialty practice in NY from 1994 to 2015. Dr. Wadhwa holds an MBA from UT at Knoxville, TN, and has undergone additional training in System Dynamics at MIT, Health System Management at Harvard Business School, and Entrepreneurship and healthcare innovations at Columbia Business School. Committed to expanding access to Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery care, he is currently engaged in a meaningful project to provide healthcare services to underserved populations in inner city and rural areas through non-profit Community Health Centers.