Resource Management
How shared people and capacity decide what gets delivered, and why keeping everyone busy slows the whole portfolio down.
Topics: All Insights · Constraints and Bottlenecks · Resource Management · The Cost of Delay · Portfolio Decisions · Value and Business Cases · Planning and Estimating
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What Is the Capacity Paradox? Why Keeping Everyone Busy Makes the Organization Slower
Read the piece: What Is the Capacity Paradox? Why Keeping Everyone Busy Makes the Organization SlowerDriving shared people toward full utilization makes an organization slower, not faster. The mechanism, the tipping point, and what to manage instead.
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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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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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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 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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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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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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Decision Latency: Why Your Projects Wait Longer for a Yes Than They Spend Being Worked On
Read the piece: Decision Latency: Why Your Projects Wait Longer for a Yes Than They Spend Being Worked OnAdvice on the decision-making process is about choosing well. In a portfolio the larger cost is how long the choice takes, and nobody measures it.
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The Case for Smaller Projects: Why Batch Size Decides How Much Value You Capture
Read the piece: The Case for Smaller Projects: Why Batch Size Decides How Much Value You CaptureBatch size is usually a delivery habit, not a decision. Priced as an economic choice, the big batch costs more, and pays back later than the small one.
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The Capacity Paradox: Why Busy Teams and Waiting Work Go Together
Read the piece: The Capacity Paradox: Why Busy Teams and Waiting Work Go TogetherWorkflow efficiency often ends up measuring how busy people are. Flow efficiency measures how much of a work item's life is spent being worked on.
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The Utilization Trap: Why 100% Busy Is the Slowest Way to Run a Portfolio
Read the piece: The Utilization Trap: Why 100% Busy Is the Slowest Way to Run a PortfolioA road jams long before it is full, and so does a team. Why ninety-five percent busy is the slowest way to run a portfolio.
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Little's Law and the Portfolio WIP Limit: Start Less to Finish More
Read the piece: Little's Law and the Portfolio WIP Limit: Start Less to Finish MoreA portfolio where everything has started is not moving faster. Little's law shows why: the fix is a work-in-progress limit, not more effort.