Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management - Thesis Example

Author’s name Instructors’ name Course Date Thesis Critique: “Resource Buffers In Critical Chain Project Management” Project Introduction The following paper seeks to analyse the “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project through by discussing the importance of various sections of a research project before criticising how they have been applied. However, the analysis will show that most of the project’s sections have been well covered by the researcher. Problem Statement The statement of the problem is instrumental in shaping the objectives that a researcher will outline. In this project, the researcher clearly stated the need to conduct his study by describing the importance of projects and then discussing why many projects fail. However, the researcher would have included the figures in the problem statement to show the statistical representation of the argument. For example the researcher would have stated that in 100 projects, 45 of them are successful while the rest are not, illustrating 45% success. The statistical figures play a critical role in convincing the reader that the project is worth taking. Further, although the researcher has provided enough literature materials in this section, the gap to be filled is not clearly stated. Purpose and Objectives of the Study In any project paper, research objective section is intended to outline the reasons why the project is being conducted. The sole aim is to give answers to the problem statement just before this section. Therefore, the statement of the problem is instrumental in shaping the objectives that a researcher will outline. The importance of objective section is that it lays the foundation through which the research should be conducted. Therefore, a researcher is expected to be providing direct and concise objectives of the project. This helps the reader to easily understand and relate objectives with other sections such as the research method or approaches used, as well as the findings, discussion, and conclusion. The key point in formulating research objectives is to guide the entire work and compare with the sections that follow in order to determine if the researcher is meeting the objectives. In the “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project, the objectives are outlined as required, but the objectives provided are not concise and direct to make the reader easily connect with the rest of the document (Valikoniene 2014). However, the researcher has tried to stick to the same objective in the answers that the project seeks to answer, which is commendable. The researcher would have reduced the number of objective to make it easier for the audience and analysts of the project. The minimization of objectives or mini-objectives also reduces confusion in the entire project. Further, the professionalism of the project may fail if the researcher ignores some of the questions or objectives outlined in this section. for example, in the project the first objective, “To review previous research on Critical Chain Project Management and the use of resource buffers in particular”, is followed with questions such as “What are the main issues analysed by CCPM researchers?” (Valikoniene 2014), which forms part of the project findings. If the researcher fails to answer the questions, the project will have created gaps instead of filling them. Theoretical Framework Project’s theoretical frameworks seek to provided literature materials and works, which have been done by the previous scholars. Therefore, the researcher is expected to provide theoretical analysis that reflects the topic of the project. In this section, theories or models should be included in order to emphasis the previous works. It is at this section that the researcher should discuss extensively the contribution of theorists in trying to solve the main problem stated in the project. Therefore, in the disunion, the researcher is expected to show the gap that has not been filled, further emphasising the importance of conducting the project. Evidently, it must be appreciated that the research in the “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project has provided all the above information in the theoretical section (Valikoniene 2014). The researcher has started by discussing the traditional project management techniques and CCPM in order to lay the foundation for the section. Secondly, the researcher has provided a short review of scheduling techniques that are used in traditional project management including the concept, advantages, and disadvantages. In this part, the researcher has discussed the need for improvement to enhance projects’ success (Valikoniene 2014). It is at this point that the researcher introduces the principles of CCPM, including features and benefits. This gives the researcher a chorological flow to the resource buffers, which are extensively described to show how they can be used to improve the current strategies. Moreover, in the theoretical discussion the researcher has included “Theory of Constraints and CCPM” to show the need for improvement (Valikoniene 2014). On the other hand, “Critical Path Method (CPM)” and “Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)” and their shortcomings are discussed to justify the application of resource buffers in project management (Valikoniene 2014). Justification of the Project in Relation to Previous Studies As indicated above the first step of a research project is to show the gap that has not been filled. Therefore, the target audience must be convinced enough to see why the project should be conducted. In order to determine the existing gap or a problem in a given aspect of the society, the researcher uses the available data and previous studies that must show what has and has not been covered. If there are previous studies, which have been carried out on the same topic, the researcher is expected to show how different the study will be, compared to the previous ones. In the “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project, the researcher has provided a comprehensive outlook on the CCPM and the PERT methods (Valikoniene 2014). The researcher acknowledges, “There are a number of project management planning and scheduling techniques which are presented in project management books, and discussed and analysed in publications of scientific journals”. The methods referred include Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Critical Path Method (CPM), Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT), Line of Balance, and others. However, the researcher fails to discuss why the other methods have not been popular in project scheduling compared to CPM and PERT, which are extensively discussed (Valikoniene 2014). In the discussion on CPM, the researcher notes the work done by George S. Birrell who also criticized this method but failed to provide enough study about the “cost factor” in CPM (Valikoniene 2014). In this case, the researcher shows how CPM deals not only with the minimization of duration, but also with the minimization of cost. In the PERT review, the researcher notes that the method is similar to CPM and provides the only difference between them, which is that the PERT evaluates the uncertainty, inherent in every project environment through pessimistic (p), most likely (m), and optimistic (o) estimates (Valikoniene 2014). On the other hand, the previous work of Cottrell has been mentioned on the weaknesses of PERT where Cottrell argues that PERT “does not address the merge-event bias problem”, which justifies the improvement. In the “need for improvement “ section, the researcher has provided information and works done previously by various scholars such as Winter et al. (2006) who provides “extensive literature review, criticizing project management as being irrelevant to practice” (Valikoniene 2014). The researcher also mentions the results of the research by Jackson and others, showing that scheduling theory focus on the allocation of resources, sequencing of activities, as well as optimization solutions, while scheduling practices concern more on organizational and social processes. Finally, the researcher has shown the previous studies done on the resource buffer under the “Project Buffer”. According to the researcher, previous studies show on the sizing of project buffers focused on the comparisons of C&PM and RSEM (Valikoniene 2014). The studies by Kokoskie illustrated that “C&PM might be more dangerous to apply in large projects while RSEM proved to perform better than C&PM”. Since the two methods are based on wrong mathematical procedures, the researcher argues that the buffer sizing methods can overcome the disadvantages of RSEM and C&PM. The researcher has also shown the previous studies on buffer by Tenera and Abreu, Long and Ohsato, and Shi and Gong in trying to find the best method for buffer sizing where they concluded that fuzzy techniques overcame the insufficiency in historical data (Valikoniene 2014). Further, Zhao also used the improved genetic algorithm to determine the size of the buffer. Additionally, the work of Lambrecht, who developed a time buffer allocation heuristic, which accounts for consequences of longer than expected activity durations caused by the resource breakdowns, has been mentioned (Valikoniene 2014). The last paragraph, the researcher notes that researches that are more recent have been done but only concentrating on the single project case, unlike the “Resource Buffers In Critical Chain Project Management” project which involves three project cases. Research Approaches The project research approach section entail using the correct approach in answering the research questions as well as meeting the objectives of the research project. Therefore, if a researcher fails to use the most suitable approach, the credibility of the findings will be questionable since they may not match with the previous sections and chapters. In “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project, the researcher has used the positivism philosophy in showing how the project objectively affects and advances knowledge project scheduling (Valikoniene 2014). Further, the researcher notes that the positivistic research deals with observable data, which the project expects, provide. The approach of positivism denotes that the researcher remains objective by having hypothetical results, which are accepted or rejected through the research findings. The researcher further justifies his choice of the positivism approach by noting that the researcher is separated from the data, which makes one unable to influence the results, making positivism approach more suitable for the project compared to the realism philosophy (Valikoniene 2014). Additionally, “experiment “ has been used as the strategy in answering the research question. This is appropriate since the project is trying to analyse the link between the size of buffer resource and the total project duration. Project Methodology The methodology used in a research project intends to help the researcher to carry out the study and come up with the results. However, in cases where the wrong method is applied in conducting a research, the findings fail to credibly show any correlation between the research question and the process of finding the answers. Therefore, a researcher should ensure that the correct method is applied in the project so that the hypothetical questions are done justice. If a researcher is confident on the methodology applied, then a concrete explanation of systematic procedure should be provided. The information to provide should include the terminology being used, objective analysis of the approaches and strategies, as well as the justification of any model used and the results findings. In the “Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management” project, the methodology used was widely reported and discussed (Valikoniene 2014). The analysis given was enough for one to see the interconnectivity between the research question and the process of finding the solution. For example, the researcher uses the quantitative method in carrying out the experiment. The quantitative method of research has been well described by the researcher as the one that uses numerical data while qualitative technique uses non-numerical data (Valikoniene 2014). This point is critical in explaining why quantitative method should be applied in this the research project. At the same time, a researcher needs to use the method that relates with the research approach chosen. As indicated, the researcher used positivism approach, which emphasises on the observation. On the other hand, qualitative method requires that a researcher be observant and record the numerical data. Therefore, the correlation between the method and approach used is well explained in this research project. Presentation and Analysis of Results Presentation and analysis helps the targeted audiences to understand the findings of the research project. Therefore, a researcher should use the most suitable methods such as graphs, tables or charts to explain the findings. In the project, the researcher used table format as well as box-and-whisker plots to present the results (Valikoniene 2014). Since the research project was expected to generate figures and observable data, the choice of box-and-whisker plots in the presentation was deliberate as they provide the most important information and do not clutter with too many additional numbers. As the researcher notes, the method also makes it easier for one to compare different projects with a large amount of data in one graph. On the other hand, the researcher has widely discussed and analysed the results for the target audience to understand (Valikoniene 2014). This is mostly done under the “results” and “discussion” chapters where the researcher explains that the three projects in low, medium, and high uncertainty conditions. The researcher has analysed every projects under the three conditions and provided the summary (Valikoniene 2014). In the “discussion” chapter, the researcher has shown that all four objectives were reached in full. Conclusion Based on the above analysis, it is evident that most of the project’s sections were well covered by the researcher. The problem was widely stated and the research objectives were outlined. The theoretical framework also provides the gap that the researcher needed to fill, which formed the bases of the research project. Further, the approaches and methods used correlated, while the results were well presented. Finally, the researcher clearly showed that all research objectives were fully met. References Valikoniene L. (2014). Resource Buffers in Critical Chain Project Management. UK, University of Manchester. Print. Read More