I've had this article kicking around for almost 18 months. It delivers a real multi-project solution for Critical Chain. It's based on real experience at 4thpass/Motorola in Seattle where the user experience team acts as the overall system bottleneck. I submitted this article to a couple of serious journals. One in the US which rejected it quickly and another in the UK where it simply went in to a black hole. After all this time I feel it is more important just to get it out. Some people have said that the multi-project solution was missing from my book and that was an unacceptable oversight. So treat this article as Chapter 10.5 :-)

Abstract

UI Design and Usability Engineering can be fully scheduled into the program management activity of larger software development organization using Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). The UI design group is used as the synchronizer in the CCPM multi-project solution and the throughput of UI design is used to regulate the flow (or velocity) of software development activities elsewhere in the organization. The work of the UI design group will be analyzed, scoped and estimated using the output from interaction design modeling with Visual Vocabulary or UML Statechart diagrams. The method can be used successfully with Agile software development methods such as Feature Driven Development (FDD). The UI design group is established as the managed constraint within the organization and the flow of value is regulated from the development of UI designs and specifications.

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