Critical Chain: A Business Novel (20 page)

A pink note is on top of the pile in my mailbox. "Please call Mr. Brad Newbolt." And a telephone number. Who is Mr. Brad Newbolt? Probably a salesman of some kind trying to interest me in something. I put it aside. There are more pressing things to do. Jim is all over me to complete our third article in the series. Not that it matters now, but I don't like to let Jim down.

I'm deeply into it when the telephone rings.
"Professor Richard Silver?"
When I respond, the voice says, "I have Mr. Newbolt for you."
"Wait," I say. What gives salespeople the guts to think that they are allowed to command other people's time? Interrupting whenever they want. "Who is Mr. Newbolt?" I demand to know.
A deep baritone answers, "I'm the president of Q.E.C." I gulp. Charlie works for them.
"I've wanted to call you for some time," he continues. "I'm very impressed with your work. We are using it, and it works very well."

"Thank you," I say. So Charlie also implemented it. He didn't say a word about it. Did he?
"Can I invite you to give us a lecture? I mean, to the YPO."
Y...P...O...? I try to decipher the acronym.
I don't have to. "YPO is the Young President's Organization," he explains. "We get together every month for dinner, a small group. Only presidents of companies. Pullman from Genemodem is in our group. We usually have a guest speaker, and we share experiences. I discussed it with the others, and we would all like, very much, to hear your ideas on projects."
I'm flabbergasted. "I'd be delighted," I politely say. Pullman? From Genemodem?
"Next Wednesday all right? A dinner talk."
"Sure."
I try to keep my head from swelling. Next Wednesday. So soon. Probably their originally scheduled, respected guest speaker canceled on them at the last minute. I'm just the fill-in. Still . . .
"I'll fax you all the details. It was a pleasure speaking with you, Professor Silver. We'll see you next Wednesday."
Before I lose my courage, I write a memo to B.J. A short memo, just saying that I'm still trying to get students to the Executive MBA program. That I'm giving a dinner talk to the YPO. And I don't forget to mention that Pullman from Genemodem will be there.
It won't help. How can it? But I don't see how it can hurt, and I'm in a really cheerful mood.

The meeting is in a private room at the Sheraton. The first person I see as I enter is B.J. Good thing I don't have castanets attached to my knees.

It's not five minutes before she succeeds in maneuvering me into a corner. "You can't imagine how many strings I had to pull in order to be here. I almost had to promise that I'd join the YPO."

She talks as if I'm the one to be blamed. Blamed for what?

"I'm counting on you to give an excellent presentation," she keeps on pressing. "Be practical. Don't talk just theory."
"What else can I talk about?"
"Of course you have to talk about the unique know-how the Executive MBA students learn in our program. But be practical. Stress how much money this know-how saves for their companies."
"But I don't know how much."
"Then talk about how much it can save them."
I was nervous before I came here. I was even more nervous when I saw B.J. But only now do I understand what real nervousness means. Thank God she leaves me. Before anybody else has a chance to corner me, I grab a waiter. No, I don't want a drink. I want to know where the toilets are.
A minute after I start my presentation, I'm cool as a cucumber. My transparencies are good. Concise and to the point. They also look good. Who would believe that I only printed the latest version at noon? Anyone who's worked with today's software.
They almost don't interrupt me. Very few questions. But they nod in the right places. They let me feel that I'm making sense, that they are with me. When I finish, they clap. More than just politely. Or maybe I fool myself?
Only when I sit down do I realize I didn't do what B.J. wanted. It wasn't on my transparencies.
Newbolt goes to the front. He formally thanks me, and then, to my surprise, he adds, "This stuff does work. We experienced it. A project that was hopelessly late is now back on track. We are now starting to manage every major project this way."
"Same here." Pullman says.
"Did you test it at Genemodem?" B.J. asks. There is no trace of surprise in her voice.
"Yes, we did. We are launching our new line two months ahead of the competition."
"That must be worth millions to your company," B.J. softly remarks.
"It helps."
Dinner is served.
Before coffee, B.J. takes over the discussion. Somehow she succeeds in causing them to feel guilty that they don't provide enough support for the university. It goes well until she starts pressing them to send more managers to the Executive MBA program.
Then it starts to backfire. They react by mocking the value of the general knowledge taught in universities. They talk about the "first year shock" and about the fact that they have to spend so much money training their already "educated" managers about what really counts.
B.J. fights back. One president talks about the fact that they do support the Executive MBA program. They pay seventy-five percent of the inflated tuition the college charges. Another president asks why the tuition for an Executive MBA is three times the tuition for the regular program.
She ducks it. Instead she claims, and proves, that they don't support their managers enough. "The two weeks they take classes in the summer they have to use their vacation time. Why? Don't you think that it helps your company for them to learn? Or maybe you think that these people, these hard-working managers who sacrifice their weekends to learn, who have to do their homework at night after work, don't need a vacation?"
They say they would do more if what was taught was more in line with things like they heard tonight.
That's all B.J. needs to hear. Masterfully she maneuvers them to agree to seriously evaluate a special track for Executive MBAs tailored to their needs. She squeezes the appointment of a committee of three presidents, or their delegates.
When we leave, she takes my arm. "Accompany me to my car. Richard, I'm afraid I grossly underestimated you. You did create a valuable piece of know-how."
It's dark outside, so she can't see me blushing. "I couldn't have done it alone," I explain. "If it weren't for Professor Fisher's new knowledge and Professor Wilson . . ." "So you are a team. Even better."
We reach her Seville STS. One of these days I, too, will have a Cadillac.
"What do you think. Is it possible to create a full, two-year program that will bring real value? Something of the caliber they heard from you tonight?"
"I think so," I answer. I'm not just telling her what she wants to hear. Based on what I hear from Jim, Johnny and particularly from Charlene, I really think so.
"Good," she slides into her car. "I'll update Christopher. I'm counting on you to update the head of the Executive MBA program."
She takes off. I stroll to my car. The sky is full of stars.

It's Saturday morning and I'm stuck. What am I going to teach them today? Originally I'd planned to raise the topic of several projects done by common resources of which one is a bottleneck, the topic I call "projects'-bottleneck." No doubt it would lead to a lively discussion. Maybe I could have gotten a clue or two out of it. But now it's too dangerous. Jim will be sitting in my class.

He decided to expand his systems course to also cover projects, and he "needs to get an impression of the students' level of knowledge." What could I tell him? Don't come?

I'm going over the outline I prepared for the course during the summer. Except for the first few lessons, there isn't much in common with what I have actually taught. There are many topics I've skipped, but for a very good reason. They are what some would call academic—resource optimization, sequence optimization, investment optimization. I call them irrelevant. So what am I going to do?

Maybe Jim will be sick? Wouldn't help much. Before the end of the year there are still four, two-hour sessions that I have to teach.

I go over the outline again. Nothing.
What am I looking for? A topic that is relevant; that excludes all optimizations, that I know well. That excludes almost everything else, definitely projects'-bottleneck. Don't even think about it. And the topic must be one that we haven't yet covered in depth. What's left?
Maybe I'll go over the buffers again? The conceptual difference between a project-buffer, feeding-buffer and a resourcebuffer. How many of my students understand that resourcebuffers don't change the elapsed time of the project? Not many, if any.
Good subject, but how much time can we spend on it? Half an hour? Relying on my students' ability to flounder and the fact that I don't have any other ideas, I decide that it's good enough.

"Good morning, class."
"Good morning."
"Good morning, guests."
"Good morning," Charlene and Jim answer.
Ten seconds gone. Didn't help much. I'd better start. "Now that almost all of you have actual experience," I start, "experience implementing what we have learned, I would like to go back and examine the concepts."
They like it.
Before I can continue, Ruth raises her hand. "I have a problem with the concepts."
What a statement. It doesn't sound good coming from Ruth. I force myself not to look at Jim.
Trying to sound nonchalant, I ask, "What's the problem?"
"Suppose that on one of the noncritical paths we are so late that we have already exhausted the entire feeding buffer, and we have started to penetrate into the project buffer. On the critical path itself we are okay."
"Might happen," I agree. "You might run into a serious problem in one of the feeding paths. But what is your conceptual problem?"
"In the situation Ruth just described, isn't it true that the critical path has changed?" Fred answers. "That now the critical path starts at the operation where we have the problem?" I think about it. Before I reach any conclusion, Mark tries to clarify. "We defined the critical path as the longest chain of dependent steps, longest in time."
"Correct."
"Ruth is talking about a situation where we are working on a step, call it step N, which is on a path we considered noncritical. Nevertheless, right now step N is delayed to the extent that it is causing the biggest penetration into the project-buffer. Doesn't this mean that right now, the longest chain of steps, longest in time, is starting at step N?"
"What are you saying?" Ted jumps in. "That midway through the project, we'll change the critical path? That's crazy." "Why?" I ask. I know why. I also see why it is necessary. But I have to gain time to think it over.
Ted seems stuck. His intuition is excellent, his verbalization lags behind. Fred answers for him; it's apparent to me that the think tank really thought it over. "We put feeding buffers only where a noncritical path merges into the critical path. Changing the critical path will necessitate changing the location of many feeding buffers."
"And that," Ted concludes, "will mess up the whole project. We can't do that."
"Agreed," Ruth says calmly. "But on the other hand, don't you see what will happen if we don't do it?"
"No!" Ted responds too hastily. The thought of rearranging everything every time we face a serious delay on a noncritical path scares him. It scares me too.
"If we don't do it," Ruth continues, "we're ignoring reality. Let's face it, whether or not we like it, right now the critical path does start at step N. And this path is not protected from disruptions in other paths by feeding buffers. It is also not protected by resource buffers. So the chance of recovery is reduced. On the contrary, there is a good chance that the delay will intensify. Don't you realize that we must rearrange the project?"
"We're doomed if we do, doomed if we don't," Ted concludes.
"That's our conceptual problem," Ruth says.
I control the wave of panic starting to build in me. Conceptual problem? Conceptual problem! What an understatement. It may ruin everything we have done!
Why haven't we seen it in reality? Four projects did finish much earlier than expected, so our method does work. Maybe it's because all these projects were already well along their way when we started. But in all cases we had feeding buffers that were exhausted; we had the situation Ruth described, so the problem cannot be as big as it seems. Where is the erroneous assumption the think tank is making?
I don't have a clue. I also don't have time. The class is waiting. Not just the class, Jim as well. I turn to the board and start to write the cloud. The objective is to finish the project on time. One necessary condition is what Ted said. We cannot afford to rearrange everything. Which means don't formally change the critical path. The other necessary condition is Ruth's point, we cannot afford to leave the true critical path exposed, which means we must formally change the critical path.

I use the trick Johnny taught me—concentrate on the arrow you dislike the most. Like Ted, I don't like rearranging the project midway; I don't want to formally change the critical path. It ruins the whole elegance of the solution, and will make it impractical. Moreover, we didn't have to do it in the projects we worked on. So what is the assumption there?