Some methods of project management put more emphasis on frameworks, hierarchies and order than on the resources within those frameworks. Critical chain project management puts greatest emphasis on the resources and therefore when there are limitations on resources critical chain project management is preferable to other methods.

Resource obligations have to be identified and then an adequate solution can be implemented. Unlike critical path project management, the main alternative, critical chain project management does not seek to produce the best of all worlds solution, and therefore major overheads in time, research and development are saved.

The way that risk is normally managed is to prepare for worst case scenarios and leave enough margin of error to accommodate even the most serious delays and failures. This means you give extra time to all your targets and allow a lot of room for each project in case of failure and the need to take alternative action.

Critical chain project management takes the extreme opposite approach, casting off the bulk of this extra time as wastage and minimizing the flow of execution strictly to what is essential, eradicating many wasteful patterns of task execution which may result from giving far too much slack when enforcing stringency in the field of staying far ahead of schedule - the optimum state for any being, and of course a business, to be in.

The separation of critical chain resources from other resources and the use of buffers which feed the critical chain resources enables the project to have an infallible engine protecting its ongoing performance, so that there is then plenty of time to spare to put in extra work and add more and more value to each and every project.

Critical chain is seen as a very effective counterbalance against uncertainty and a potent vehicle for increasing productivity, speed and efficacy. It is one of the most important developments in bureaucratic methodology this side of the beatles.

The bottom line is that work is done if it needs to be done and anything which is not needed is not done. Naturally this approach can be seriously damaging if taken on its own with no acceptance that outside of financial emergencies it should only be the basis, not the entirety, of an approach to management. An organisation which presents no job satisfaction to intelligent original-thinking employees who can operate outside the box is not an organisation which will stand the real test of time, the one which companies like Coca Cola are still taking.

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