Supply chain scheduling

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What can I say here that you've not heard before?

First: we are living in a time of scarcity, and so strategies for allocating scarcity come to the fore.

Second, demand for the scarce drives price -- no news there -- but demand itself may color supply and thereby schedule. Supply will not be directly correlated with price. Why? Because supply is what is going to be allocated, and price in dollars may not be currency. The currency of supply may take these forms: 

• allocation may bring loyalty into the mix; 
• may bring commitment to very long term relationships as the price of access
• may favor the cash deal over credit
• may require large up-front down payments that didn't exist before 
• may require quid pro quo: you have something I want; but I have something you want

Scheduling the scarce

So, now your job is to schedule in the context of such a landscape.

You begin with the normal risk tolerant scheduling techniques like those explained in "Critical Chain" theory:

• Be sure you understand that the 'most important schedule path' may not be -- technically -- the critical path. 'Most important' is where the critical value is as viewed by the customer or sponsor.
• Protect the 'most important' path by allocating what resources to that path first, and starving, if necessary, others
• Generously buffer around all the key milestones so that none are 'fragile' in the sense of bringing down the project if the nominal target date is missed

Architecture may help

Your architect can help you by designing-in all the anti-fragile strategies so that a missing part or resource, or a  sub-optimum substitute, is not fatal or cause a chaotic outcome. Your job is then to schedule these strategies into the master plan.

• Redundancy
• Negative feedback for stabilization
• 'Rip-stop' interfaces between subsystems, objects, and other elements

Your CFO may help

• Cash is king when demand exceeds supply
• Long-term contracts with favorable financial incentives may free up supply

Your take away:

Scheduling with scarcity is not just an exercise in time management. All the other disciplines can play a part.

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Just what we need: another reorganization!

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"Whether in government or private business, office reorganizations are invariably touted as efficiency moves, when just as invariably—as anyone who has experienced one can attest—their short-term effects are redundancy and paralysis.

Naturally, the extent of these ill effects correlates to the amount of thought and planning—or lack"

Scott Anderson “The Quiet Americans".

What to do?

As a practical matter, PMO should reflect this experienced voice in project plans by planning for an initial dip in productivity, increased waste (likely increased cost) over the short term, and an extended schedule to allow this all to unfold.

To manage the risk, buffer all the critical tasks and milestones, and assume some less-than-expected performance in the short-term.

All this to give time for new relationships to form, new processes to be practiced and debugged, and for a steady-state to form and become apparent. 

And, of course, some stuff won't actually work; so some adjustment of the reorganization is to be expected, but perhaps only after a good shake-down period.

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