Interview with Senior Managers’ and Project Managers’ Guide to Critical Chain author René Nibbelke

There are many challenges that come with the planning and delivery of a project. Issues such as time wasting, project uncertainty and complexity can all contribute to what feels like an insoluble problem. The Senior Managers’ and Project Managers’ Guide to Critical Chain is a useful guide for those who need to address this problem.

Written by René Nibbelke, BAE Systems Project Management Fellow (currently on secondment to the Ministry of Defence) and a team of experts, the guide explains what the critical chain is, how it can address issues at the root cause and the ways in which it can be integrated into a project.

René spoke with to about writing the guide, how it provides the clear first steps for people to get started, and his history in project management.

Tell us about your background in project management and your experience with the critical chain?

I have been working in project management now for 30 years in various roles. I have always been a curious person throughout my career. When I was Head of Project Management Strategy for BAE Systems, I was looking at different ways of working such as Agile and I encountered Critical Chain. I discovered that this method of planning and executing projects addressed resource conflicts and protected the schedule against uncertainty. Ever since, I have been championing this way of working in the project profession.

Why did you decide to write this guide?

I wanted to give back to the profession. Critical chain project management (and evolution of Critical Path) has delivered significant improvements to performance in complex design and development, manufacturing and maintenance projects across various industries. It can reduce a project’s duration, increase a project team’s satisfaction, and simplify project management in terms of the level of scheduling. I wanted to create a guide that makes the profession aware of the critical chain way of working and ultimately bring it to the mainstream of our profession. This guide is exactly what I wish I had when I started out. I am the target audience for it, the senior executive who wants to make an impact. It is not a large book, it’s a 40 page simple step-by-step guide for readers who want to get started, it looks to make the case for the critical chain through case studies and prior research.

Collaborating with an organisation like APM on this guide was also a hugely rewarding part of writing it. Having the APM logo on the cover is a statement of endorsement on the content inside! The response to the guide throughout the wider project profession has been delightful with a large number of copies sold in the first few months after publication  

What does this guide explore?

The guide offers advice on implementing the critical chain way of working into an existing project team or organisation. The guide presents the case for adopting the critical chain using a phased business change approach and offers 10 simple principles, that I call ‘rules of flow’, to address the root causes of poor project delivery, such as uncertainty and resource limitations. I truly believe that if you follow all 10 ‘rules of flow’, your work will go faster.

The guide also looks to address and even challenge readers’ current perception of the critical chain, in terms of its scheduling and execution. It focuses on resistance to change and how to overcome it. The guide looks at resistance in terms of six layers and explains how projects can tackle each of these layers in order to be successful.

What will readers get out of this book?

It will give reader’s the confidence to get started. For someone who has never done it before, the critical chain can seem really intimidating. There are several helpful case studies (with a link to videos) featured throughout that can be used as a reference point and as guidance for newcomers, we encourage readers to embrace and emulate them as best they can. There is a real emphasis throughout the guide to be curious and talk to those who have worked with the critical chain previously, we want readers to seek out additional resources and external support to learn all they can. We don’t want people to do it by themselves, we want people to take a training and coaching approach to critical chain.

The Senior Managers’ and Project Managers’ Guide to Critical Chain is available to buy now here.