Critical Chain Success Tip - Mitigating Client Disruptions

In a project or Multi-project management environment it is often the customers we are servicing who are the cause for delays to our projects. Very often these delays take the form of:

• Decision Delays
• Unclear or unknown requirements and specifications
• Communication delays
• Delays on necessary inputs (components, parts, drawings etc)
• Changes to the specification itself

Critical Chain Project management highlights “at risk” chains of tasks where these delays are likely to jeopardise the project’s end date.

What is typically missing in traditional project management is the ability for project organisations to clearly demonstrate to the clients the impact of any disruptions. The question is:

How can we influence the client to take action to remove the delay?

There are three elements to ensuring client disruptions can be managed:

• Show the impact – very often clients are unaware of the actual impact of a specific delay – Project managers should communicate the threat to the Critical Chain Project Network and explain the implications to the project sponsor within the client as well as the normal contacts
• Manage the client – it is often felt that it is not the responsibility of a Project Manager to address a delay when it sits with the client – successful Critical Chain implementations require project managers to challenge the clients when delays are experienced from them
• Help the Client – Very often the client would benefit from input from the Project Manager to address the delay – It is important that Project Managers work with the client to see what can be done to remove any disruptions.