Patent ID: 7669179

Claim:
A method on a computer for providing critical chain-based project management across a plurality of projects, comprising: generating a plurality of project plans having a critical chain, each of the plurality of project plans corresponding to one of the plurality of projects, wherein a project comprises at least one task; generating buffers for each of the plurality of projects, wherein at least one of the buffers generated is placed on the critical chain; reconciling project resources among the plurality of projects such that priority is given to resource needs of the critical chain executing the plurality of project plans; continuously displaying status information about the buffers to a user via a graphical user interface, wherein the status information displayed for each project of the plurality of projects includes a buffer consumption percentage and a completion percentage for a current longest chain of tasks in the project, wherein the status information displayed for each project of the plurality of projects further includes at least one of a project buffer consumption percentage and a milestone buffer consumption percentage; providing to the user a graphical user interface for managing the buffers across the plurality of projects based on the status information about the buffers; and continuously modifying task prioritization for any task of the plurality of projects based on the status information about the buffers, wherein task prioritization is calculated across the plurality of projects so as to accommodate the critical chain, and wherein task prioritization for a task is calculated based on a buffer consumption percentage of a longest chain to which the task belongs and based on a chain completion percentage of the longest chain to which the task belongs.