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Leitura de 16 min

Prioritization Using Critical Path Thinking

Summary

This episode explores a fundamental yet often overlooked approach to prioritization: critical path thinking. Instead of evaluating tasks individually based on their atomic value, the host argues we should identify and focus on the sequential chain of events that must happen in a specific order to deliver value. This shift prevents the common pitfall of deprioritizing tasks that seem less important in isolation but are actually crucial links in the chain.

The concept is illustrated with relatable analogies, such as the morning routine of getting children ready for school. Here, toasting a bagel might seem less critical than helping kids put on shoes, but if the bagel isn’t toasted on time, it delays the entire sequence of leaving the house. The shoes can be put on in parallel (e.g., in the car), but the bagel preparation is a sequential dependency on the critical path. This demonstrates that the highest priority items are those on the critical path, as they are the constraint to delivering the final outcome.

The discussion connects this idea to established management theory, specifically Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints and his book The Goal. The logical truth is that to deliver value as soon as possible, you must not block progress on the critical chain. While multi-project environments add complexity, the core principle applies to any process: identify the sequence of necessary steps, understand what can be parallelized, and ensure the critical path remains unblocked.

The host provides practical homework: apply critical path thinking to a low-stakes process in the coming week, like planning a barbecue. By mapping out the sequence (buying food, starting the grill, serving) and identifying parallelizable tasks, you build the mental muscle to apply this framework to work projects. The goal is to move beyond unit economics and task-by-task evaluation to a systems-level view of prioritization that optimizes for the total delivered outcome.

Recommendations

Books

  • The Goal — A book by Eli Goldratt that introduces the Theory of Constraints, which forms the basis for the critical chain concept discussed in the episode.
  • The Critical Chain — A book by Eli Goldratt specifically about project management and the application of the critical chain methodology.

Communities

  • Developer Tea Discord — Listeners are invited to join the Developer Tea Discord community to share their experiences applying the critical path concepts discussed in the episode.

Tools

  • Propel Auth — The episode’s sponsor. A B2B authentication and user management company offering features like traditional passwords, SSO, SAML, user impersonation, and admin dashboards with transparent pricing and a free test environment.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to fundamental prioritization advice — The host introduces the episode’s topic: revisiting basic prioritization principles that often trip people up. He explains the common mistake of prioritizing individual tasks or tickets in isolation, comparing it to traditional factory management focused on machine utilization rates. This atomic, unit-economics approach to prioritization is flawed and needs to be replaced with a different mindset.
  • 00:02:44 — Introducing the concept of the critical path — The host shifts to the core concept: thinking in terms of the critical path. He shares an anecdote about his wife intuitively understanding the critical path when getting their children ready for school. This involves sequencing tasks correctly, knowing what can be parallelized, and identifying dependencies. He poses a provocative question to frame the upcoming discussion: “What does toasting a bagel have to do with my project?”
  • 00:05:45 — The bagel analogy and sequential dependencies — Returning from the sponsor break, the host elaborates on the bagel analogy. In the morning routine, toasting the bagel is a sequential dependency; if it’s not done on time, spreading cream cheese and leaving on time are threatened. Helping with shoes, while important, can happen in parallel (e.g., in the car). This illustrates that prioritization based on unit importance (“shoes are more important than bagels”) is wrong; the key is the sequencing on the critical path.
  • 00:08:44 — Defining the critical chain and its logical basis — The host formally defines the critical chain as the sequential chain of events that must happen in a specific order and cannot be parallelized or re-ordered. The highest priority work is whatever lives on this path. He grounds this in Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, mentioning the books The Goal and The Critical Chain. Logically, if your goal is to deliver value as soon as possible, the critical chain is the constraint, so anything blocking it should be the top priority.
  • 00:11:37 — Practical homework and applying the concept — The host assigns simple homework: apply critical path thinking to a low-stakes process in the coming week, like planning a barbecue. Identify the sequence (buying food, starting the grill, serving), figure out what can be parallelized, and practice recognizing the critical path. This builds mental muscle memory to translate the concept to work projects. He invites listeners to share their experiences in the Developer Tea Discord community.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2024-04-23T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:13:56

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] In today’s episode, I want to share some of the most basic prioritization

[00:00:14] advice that you’ll ever hear.

[00:00:17] And hopefully, uh, hopefully this is not groundbreaking.

[00:00:20] This should be just a reiteration, uh, of some principles, uh, a

[00:00:26] revisiting of the basics of prioritization in this,

[00:00:32] this concept, uh, is one that actually does trip people up a lot,

[00:00:36] even though it is very fundamental.

[00:00:39] And the reason it trips people up a lot is because we tend to think in

[00:00:46] terms of individual tasks, we try to prioritize by thinking in terms of,

[00:00:54] let’s say one ticket at a time.

[00:00:57] If we’re lucky, uh, we’re thinking at least on the epic scale, right?

[00:01:02] If you’re using epics in your planning, uh, some selection of a group of

[00:01:09] stories, a group of tickets, tasks that all are related to something together.

[00:01:16] Now it seems intuitive that we would prioritize this way.

[00:01:20] It seems like we can look at a pool of things to do and

[00:01:25] pick any number of those things.

[00:01:28] And let’s say we have a pool of a hundred items.

[00:01:31] We could take five items and compare them in terms of their

[00:01:35] relative priority to each other.

[00:01:37] How much value gets delivered by this atomic piece of, of work.

[00:01:46] And we think about our lives this way as well.

[00:01:48] We think about most business processes this way.

[00:01:51] In fact, for many years, uh, this is the way that factories were managed.

[00:01:57] You think about each individual machine, each discrete delivering mechanism.

[00:02:03] This machine has some amount of utilization rate, for example, right?

[00:02:08] This is the, the language that you would use in a factory setting.

[00:02:13] And the utilization rate of machine A and machine B and machine C can all

[00:02:17] be evaluated separately from each other.

[00:02:20] And there is some, uh, imperative in traditional, uh, you know, kind of

[00:02:26] old school, uh, uh, factory management to try to keep your machines running

[00:02:32] at, uh, the maximum utilization rate.

[00:02:36] But this kind of prioritization, this kind of energy spend, this kind

[00:02:41] of unit economics thinking breaks.

[00:02:44] Instead, I want you to think in terms of the critical path.

[00:02:50] I’ll share a short anecdote.

[00:02:51] My wife’s birthday is tomorrow, so, uh, she is on my mind and she does a very

[00:02:57] good job intuitively in understanding the critical path and specifically our two

[00:03:04] young children, uh, when they are getting ready for school in the morning, my wife

[00:03:08] understands the critical path of getting them to school on time.

[00:03:12] It all starts all the way back at a wake-up time.

[00:03:17] And if things are not sequenced properly, then it’s very possible that we threaten

[00:03:23] getting the kids to school on time.

[00:03:25] She has this intuitive understanding of what things can we trade off, what

[00:03:29] things can be parallelized, what things must be done in a certain order.

[00:03:36] Of course, you’re not going to put your shoes on before you change your pants.

[00:03:41] So I’m going to ask a very simple question, uh, perhaps a confusing question,

[00:03:45] and then we’re going to take a quick break and then we’re going to come back

[00:03:48] and talk about how the critical chain works in your work life.

[00:03:51] The simple question is, what does toasting a bagel have to do with my project?

[00:03:58] We’ll talk about that right after we talk about today’s sponsor.

[00:04:10] Today’s episode of developer T is sponsored by propel.

[00:04:15] Auth propel auth is a B2B authentication and user management company built for

[00:04:19] every stage of your business, whether you’re a pre-launch startup looking to

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[00:04:38] with user impersonation and built-in admin dashboards propel auth understands

[00:04:43] that choosing an auth provider isn’t just about the feature set.

[00:04:47] You want to make sure you’re getting into a partnership with the company

[00:04:50] you can trust for the long haul.

[00:04:52] That’s why they offer transparent pricing, the ability to try out all their

[00:04:56] features in a test environment with no credit card required and top-notch

[00:05:00] customer support, one happy customer recently said propel auth has been my

[00:05:05] go-to for quick and easy authentication for a while now, but I had yet to

[00:05:10] interact with an actual person there this week.

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[00:05:18] If you’re ready to give propel auth a try, head over to www.propelauth.com

[00:05:25] and sign up to start exploring.

[00:05:26] That’s www.p-r-o-p-e-l-a-u-t-h.com.

[00:05:33] Thanks again to propel auth for sponsoring today’s episode of develop a team.

[00:05:45] What does a bagel have to do with your project?

[00:05:50] As I mentioned before, uh, my very intelligent wife who works in product

[00:05:56] herself, she has an excellent handle on the critical chain for, uh, getting

[00:06:03] the kids out the door.

[00:06:03] Of course she brings this kind of skill to work, but this is where I

[00:06:06] see it, uh, most readily apparently.

[00:06:10] Perhaps this is why she’s such a good product leader, but she recognizes

[00:06:15] that there are some things that are sequential, that you have a dependency

[00:06:22] that may seem like in an atomic sense, not a big deal toasting the bagel on time

[00:06:30] is necessary because if you don’t toast the bagel on time, you won’t have time

[00:06:35] to spread the cream cheese on the bagel before you have to walk out the door

[00:06:38] with the bagel in hand and spreading cream cheese is not something that can

[00:06:42] happen in parallel in the car, but the kids putting the shoes on can.

[00:06:48] And so instead of trying to help the kids get their shoes on, you should

[00:06:51] probably get the bagel out of the fridge and get it into the

[00:06:54] toaster as soon as you can.

[00:06:56] And this kind of feels counterintuitive.

[00:06:58] You would think that while shoes are more important than bagels, right?

[00:07:02] This is the, the kind of unit economics thinking we should prioritize shoes

[00:07:06] because the kids having shoes on at school is a must, we must have shoes on.

[00:07:12] But, uh, the bagel, we’re, you know, the bagel doesn’t get eaten

[00:07:16] until it gets into the car.

[00:07:18] But this is the wrong way of thinking because sequencing of these

[00:07:23] things is what’s most important.

[00:07:26] Nothing really matters except the total package.

[00:07:30] We can’t think about the value of getting the bagel done on its own

[00:07:35] without thinking about what it will take to get the kids to school on time.

[00:07:41] Now this lecture is not a lecture about being on time.

[00:07:44] Instead is a lecture about thinking about prioritization.

[00:07:48] Prioritization is only about time in so much that you’re choosing what to do at

[00:07:55] any given point in time based on your prioritization, but here’s what tends to

[00:08:01] happen in immature product teams and companies that have not figured out how

[00:08:06] to think about critical chain, the bagels get de-prioritized.

[00:08:12] Now, sometimes this is the right call.

[00:08:15] Sometimes there are indeed things that are more important than bagels, like

[00:08:19] for example, changing out of your pajamas into your school clothes, if

[00:08:24] you’re my children at least, but prioritization strategies almost always

[00:08:29] should be considering the critical chain.

[00:08:33] The critical chain is the things that must happen sequentially that you

[00:08:38] cannot parallelize, that you can’t de-prioritize one or the other over

[00:08:42] the other, you can’t change the ordering.

[00:08:44] The critical chain is exactly what it sounds like, the critical path.

[00:08:50] It is a sequential chain of events that must happen in that order.

[00:08:55] In any one of those links in the chain, there may be other parallel things

[00:08:59] that can happen alongside of it, but most importantly, the highest priority

[00:09:05] stuff is going to be whatever lives on that critical path.

[00:09:11] Now you might challenge them and say, okay, that doesn’t sound right.

[00:09:14] It seems like there are still other high priority things

[00:09:17] that can be parallelized.

[00:09:18] That’s absolutely true, but think about what happens if you choose to do

[00:09:24] something that’s not on that critical chain that is parallelizable instead

[00:09:30] of doing something on the critical chain.

[00:09:32] By the way, this is not a, you know, original concept that I came up with.

[00:09:37] This is all based on the theory of constraints.

[00:09:40] We’ve talked about this recently on the show before from Eli Goldratt

[00:09:45] and his book, The Goal.

[00:09:47] In fact, he does have a book called The Critical Chain and it

[00:09:50] is about project management.

[00:09:52] There’s a lot more that has happened in, you know, kind of agile management

[00:09:57] and project management and various research that has gone on.

[00:10:01] But the same core concept remains valid and that’s because it’s simply

[00:10:06] a logical concept, it’s a logical truth that whatever your critical

[00:10:11] chain is, is your constraint.

[00:10:16] And so if your goal is to deliver value as soon as possible, again, we’re

[00:10:23] not talking about deadlines here.

[00:10:24] We’re talking about delivering value as soon as you possibly can.

[00:10:29] And the, the blocker to that value being delivered is the critical chain.

[00:10:34] Then it logically follows that anything that comes in the way of continuing

[00:10:38] to progress on that critical chain is likely lower priority.

[00:10:43] Now the more realistic scenario is actually when you have multiple

[00:10:47] critical chains, you have multiple projects or efforts running and each

[00:10:51] of them has their own kind of path.

[00:10:53] So we’re kind of excluding that intentionally from today’s conversation

[00:10:57] because prioritizing in a multi-project or a multi-effort environment is a

[00:11:02] little bit harder to do, but you can apply this concept in virtually any

[00:11:08] environment, in almost any kind of process.

[00:11:12] Every process has some kind of critical path and maybe the critical path

[00:11:16] is only one item long, that’s fine.

[00:11:19] But it’s very likely that the critical path has a couple of things, a handful

[00:11:23] of things that are required and the sooner you recognize the importance

[00:11:29] of sequencing, the sooner you can respond and set yourself up for

[00:11:34] success based on the critical path.

[00:11:37] I’m going to give you some homework in this episode.

[00:11:39] The homework is very simple.

[00:11:41] Think about some kind of process that you are performing in the next week.

[00:11:46] Maybe it’s over the weekend.

[00:11:47] Maybe you’re doing a barbecue or something.

[00:11:49] Think about what is the critical path associated with that barbecue?

[00:11:53] What do I have to do?

[00:11:54] When, when do I have to, for example, buy the, the, the meat or the veggies

[00:12:01] that I’m going to barbecue, when do I have to start the grill?

[00:12:05] When do, when do things cool down and when do I serve them?

[00:12:08] All of these things can be considered part of the critical chain.

[00:12:12] Think about what parts of that path can be parallelized.

[00:12:17] So can, can you do something while something is sitting on the grill?

[00:12:20] These are very simple kind of mental models and playing around with the

[00:12:26] critical path, uh, in this low stakes environment can kind of give you the

[00:12:30] mental, uh, or the muscle memory, um, to be able to then kind of translate

[00:12:37] that to another critical path.

[00:12:40] So you can think about how do we parallelize things?

[00:12:43] How can we make sure that, uh, this path is not interrupted?

[00:12:47] I’d love to hear more about what you choose, uh, to think about what, what

[00:12:51] the kind of critical paths you’ve, uh, you’ve recognized, you know, what is

[00:12:55] something that you realized, uh, as a part of this that is very important

[00:13:00] because it is on that critical path and it’s blocking very important things after

[00:13:05] it, uh, maybe this concept of unit economics is fundamentally new to you.

[00:13:09] I’d love to hear about your experiences listening to this episode and then

[00:13:13] applying these ideas.

[00:13:14] You can join the developer T discord community and share with me over

[00:13:17] there at developer T.com slash discord.

[00:13:20] Another huge thank you to today’s sponsor, propel off.

[00:13:24] If you’re building a B2B product and looking for an auth provider that can

[00:13:27] support you now and as you grow, give propel auth a try all of their features

[00:13:32] are available to test without a credit card and you can get started at

[00:13:37] www.propelloff.com.

[00:13:40] That’s www.propelauth.com.

[00:13:46] Thanks so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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