Insights
Fresh thinking on flow, capacity and the economics of getting the right projects finished. Newest first.
Topics: Constraints and Bottlenecks · Resource Management · The Cost of Delay · Portfolio Decisions · Value and Business Cases · Planning and Estimating
Essays by Dr. Albert Ponsteen
Albert writes on Flow Economics alongside Ben Rawson. His newest pieces sit here, and Ben's follow below.
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The Borrowed Buffer: Why a Whole Portfolio Turns Red at Once
Read the piece: The Borrowed Buffer: Why a Whole Portfolio Turns Red at OnceA portfolio stays green for months, then turns red at once. Why critical chain works for one project but cannot see what each rescue costs across many.
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When Every Project Is Priority One: How a Portfolio Turned Around in Five Weeks
Read the piece: When Every Project Is Priority One: How a Portfolio Turned Around in Five WeeksEvery project was priority one and nothing was finishing. What turned it around in five weeks? A real case behind the Sequencing Decision.
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PMO Structure: Why the Org Chart Splits Your Queue
Read the piece: PMO Structure: Why the Org Chart Splits Your QueueA federated PMO structure gives each division its own ranking, so the shared constraint splits its hours by org chart instead of by value per hour.
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PMO Roles and Responsibilities: The Missing Owner
Read the piece: PMO Roles and Responsibilities: The Missing OwnerStandard PMO roles and responsibilities each cover one project at a time, so the decision about who gets the constraint first has no owner.
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How to Prioritize Projects: Score the Wait, Not the Worth
Read the piece: How to Prioritize Projects: Score the Wait, Not the WorthScoring models rank projects by worth, but order is set by drag cost: what each week of waiting loses, divided by time at the constraint.
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The Little's Law Formula Has a Price Tag
Read the piece: The Little's Law Formula Has a Price TagLittle's Law makes flow time WIP divided by constraint throughput, so every project over the limit adds a fixed monthly drag cost.
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The Project Prioritization Matrix Draws the Wrong Lines
Read the piece: The Project Prioritization Matrix Draws the Wrong LinesA prioritization matrix sorts work into boxes, but priority is a slope: drag cost per week divided by time at the constraint, steepest first.
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What Does a PMO Do? Six Jobs and the One It Skips
Read the piece: What Does a PMO Do? Six Jobs and the One It SkipsA PMO's six standard jobs all work project by project, so the decision that sets portfolio speed, who gets the constraint first, goes unowned.
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WIP Limits: Why Your Team Boards Don't Limit the Portfolio
Read the piece: WIP Limits: Why Your Team Boards Don't Limit the PortfolioTeam WIP limits cap tickets per board, not projects at the constraint, so a portfolio can obey every limit and still stall.
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Pick Your Capacity Constraint Before It Picks You
Read the piece: Pick Your Capacity Constraint Before It Picks YouEvery portfolio has a capacity constraint. Choosing where it sits decides whether relief costs a quarter or a hiring cycle.
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Your Resource Constraint Is Probably a Policy
Read the piece: Your Resource Constraint Is Probably a PolicyA resource constraint made of rules can be relieved for the price of a decision, so price every route in dollars per constraint hour released.
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Bottleneck Analysis: The Answer Is a Slope, Not a Name
Read the piece: Bottleneck Analysis: The Answer Is a Slope, Not a NameA bottleneck analysis that returns a name cannot size the overload. The slope of the queue in front of a resource can, in hours per week.
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Cycle Time vs Lead Time: Only One of Them Has a Price
Read the piece: Cycle Time vs Lead Time: Only One of Them Has a PriceCycle time's clock starts on a date you control, so improving it can move nothing. Lead time is the wait your drag cost runs on.
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The Escalation Auction: Why Your Scarcest Hours Go to the Loudest Sponsor
Read the piece: The Escalation Auction: Why Your Scarcest Hours Go to the Loudest SponsorYour scarcest hours go to the loudest sponsor, not the best-returning work. Issuing capacity as an allowance of constraint-hours changes that.
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The Supervision Coefficient: Why Buying Capacity Costs You the Capacity You Were Short Of
Read the piece: The Supervision Coefficient: Why Buying Capacity Costs You the Capacity You Were Short OfBought-in capacity draws hours from the constrained people who specify, review and accept it. That draw decides whether buying helps.
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The Run Tail: Why Every Project You Deliver Makes the Next One Slower
Read the piece: The Run Tail: Why Every Project You Deliver Makes the Next One SlowerEvery system you deliver keeps drawing on your scarcest specialists after the project closes, so each one you finish slows the next.
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The Pooling Dividend: Why Your Six-Person Team Is Really Six Teams of One
Read the piece: The Pooling Dividend: Why Your Six-Person Team Is Really Six Teams of OneA team of six is often six queues of one. Coverage depth, how many people could take the work, is the queueing term nobody measures.
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Value per Constrained Resource Hour
Read the piece: Value per Constrained Resource HourProject prioritization by score or size favors big projects. Value per constrained resource hour ranks work by what it returns on your scarcest resource.
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The Coordination Ceiling
Read the piece: The Coordination CeilingProject coordination helps a slipping portfolio until it stops helping. Past the Coordination Ceiling, each extra meeting costs more capacity than it saves.
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The Execution Gap
Read the piece: The Execution GapStrategy execution is usually treated as a discipline problem. The execution gap is an economics one: more approved work than the constraint can carry.
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The Project Illusion
Read the piece: The Project IllusionProject success is usually judged on time, budget and scope. Yet individual projects can look healthy while the portfolio as a whole underdelivers.
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The Asymmetric Ledger: Why Your Portfolio Can Book Every Dollar It Saves and None of the Dollars It Never Earned
Read the piece: The Asymmetric Ledger: Why Your Portfolio Can Book Every Dollar It Saves and None of the Dollars It Never EarnedOpportunity cost is real, but portfolios book the money they save and never the value they failed to earn. Here is why, and what closes the gap.
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The Sub-Threshold Portfolio: Why the Work Too Small to Govern Consumes Your Scarcest Capacity
Read the piece: The Sub-Threshold Portfolio: Why the Work Too Small to Govern Consumes Your Scarcest CapacityProject governance keys on size in dollars. That is why work below the threshold skips scrutiny and still consumes your most constrained specialists.
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The Optimism Gradient: Why the Projects Nobody Can Check Keep Beating the Ones You Can Measure
Read the piece: The Optimism Gradient: Why the Projects Nobody Can Check Keep Beating the Ones You Can MeasureOptimism bias is not spread evenly across a portfolio. It grows where a benefit claim cannot be checked, and that is what wins your scarcest capacity.
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Queuing Theory and the Variability Tax: Why Smoothing Your Work Beats Adding People
Read the piece: Queuing Theory and the Variability Tax: Why Smoothing Your Work Beats Adding PeopleQueuing theory shows why two teams at the same utilization can wait very differently, and why smoothing the work usually beats adding more people.
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The Ceiling Behind the Ceiling: Why Elevating Your Constraint Returns a Fraction of What You Paid For
Read the piece: The Ceiling Behind the Ceiling: Why Elevating Your Constraint Returns a Fraction of What You Paid ForProject constraints usually mean scope, time and cost. Delivery speed is set by one shared resource, and elevating it just moves you to the next ceiling.