The answer is 'yes', but anyone who has run projects knows full well that this is not easy. There are good project managers out there who can achieve these goals - at least most of the time - through hard work and diligence. But equally well there are many project managers who don't have the ability to do this and truly struggle all the time to get anywhere near these goals.

You then have the issue in 'multi-project' environments of better project managers pulling resources onto their projects at the expense of other projects. So some projects win, and some lose. Frequent conflicts arise in this kind of situation which does nobody any good.

The issue for project based organisations is how to achieve on-time, in full, to budget status across all their projects, not just a few. Relying on having excellent project managers is not a robust, replicable way of achieving this goal.

I&J Munn Ltd provide project management training and access to software tools to address this issue. By providing a set of tools, knowledge and rules which work for each and every project you can regain control of the projects in your business. Whether you 'sell' projects directly or you simply rely on them to develop the products you do sell, or the facilities that make them, then you can make some very substantial improvements by adopting the Project Management methods which we teach.

All of our Project Management solutions are based on the principles of "Critical Chain" which were first developed by Dr Eli Goldratt as part of the Theory of Constraints body of knowledge.

The essence of Critical Chain is first to recognise that in any project environment there are 'constraints' involved, and in the context of projects those constraints are resources which we need in order to progress not just one, but probably many of our projects. By working out how we can get the best out of our most loaded constraint - or the critical resource - we can develop a way of running projects that means that all projects 'win' not just a few, and by doing that we give ourselves a much higher chance of achieving the goal of on-time, in full, to budget across all our projects.

Our programmes are taught by Ted Hutchin, who is both a highly experienced Project Manager as well as an academic expert on the subject, regularly giving university lectures on Critical Chain. He is therefore able to apply an effective combination of practical experience and in-depth knowledge to this field.

Our training courses in Project Management range from a half day 'Overview' course on Critical Chain Project Management to a two day 'Fundamentals' workshop.

A brief description of each course is outlined below, together with an explanation of who the course is targeted towards. You can click on the box titles to access a detailed description of each course, including how to book onto the courses.

Our half day overview of Critical Chain project management is an ideal way of finding out the essence of Critical Chain and evaluating whether the solution would be appropriate for your company.

The key concepts are explained using highly visual and animated teaching tools which enable you to quickly grasp the ideas and principles that make up Critical Chain.

The course is suitable for anyone with experience of project management or for directors and managers responsible for improving the performance of projects in their organisation. Previous project management experience would be of benefit but is not essential.

Our two day "Fundamentals" workshop in Critical Chain goes much deeper into the subject and teaches the details of the principles and methodology behind Critical Chain.

Participants will make use of a variety of simulation tools to understand the key differences between traditional project management methods and Critical Chain, and will have the opportunity to try out the same project challenges using both conventional and Critical Chain thinking to see the differences.

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of the core principles of Critical Chain and will be ready to evaluate Critical Chain software solutions and to start a programme to implement Critical Chain in their company.

The workshop assumes a basic prior knowledge of project management techniques and is suitable for all project management roles - project managers, resource managers, and key task specialists.   

Running Critical Chain in a business does require some tools - would anyone these days consider running one project manually let alone several? Unfortunately many of the most common Project Management software packages fall short in providing Critical Chain functionality.

Listed below are brief descriptions and links to some of the Critical Chain compliant software packages that we are aware of. We cannot guarantee that this list is exhaustive and we have only listed packages with which we have a degree of experience.

We are not connected with any of these software businesses in any commercial way - we are not agents or partners and receive no financial income from these companies. We simply provide here a list of links that you might want to explore to evaluate these software tools for yourselves.

Regardless of which software tool you choose, the training courses we provide are in full compliance with the software solutions as they are all based on the same core Critical Chain knowledge.

Concerto from Realization is a multi-project Critical Chain solution that has many implementations across the world.

Pro-Chain is a Critical Chain solution from Pro-Chain Solutions Inc with a substantial track record of implementations worldwide.

CCPM+ is provided by Advanced Projects Inc and adds Critical Chain functionality to MS Project to enable the use of Critical Chain principles in that environment.

Exepron is a relatively new product based on cloud computing which provides Critical Chain Project Management as a web delivered software service, and requires no additional project management software to use it. It is provided on a monthly subscription basis.