Comment by int0x2e

About 10 years ago, I worked on a large, multi team (multi-org really) project that was run using TOC (Theory Of Constraints). Put very very very simply, every team was told to give honest, buffer-less estimates for their primary work areas, and then a global project buffer was added as a factor of the sum of estimates. At any point in time, we worked as if every single thing would line up perfectly, so upcoming milestone targets would often feel crazy or unlikely. But people being eager to please, and mostly unwillingness to be the one team blocking the entire project - meant that folks worked hard to meet some of these targets. It was extremely hard. It was a bit stressful. It felt crazy at times. But it got done in half the time I would have initially expected such a complex project to take. To me, the most impressive thing about it all was that the project leader drove us all quite hard but was super cool - he explained that he wanted everyone to be open and honest about blockers so they could be moved with the full force he was given, and that actually, his way of measuring project progress was the rate at which schedules slipped.