Not so much an attempt to explain the concept, but here's my stab at untangling the quoted verbiage ...

Original:
"The critical chain method uses activities with durations that do not include safety margins, logical relationships, and resource availability with statistically determined buffers composed of the aggregated safety margins of activities at specified points on the project schedule path to account for limited resources and project uncertainties."

Rewritten:

The critical chain method uses the following:

• Activities with durations that do not include safety margins
• Logical relationships
• Resource availability

Buffers are then added into specified points on the project schedule path to account for limited resources and project uncertainties. These buffers are determined statistically by determining and combining safety margins for the identified activities.

At least I think that's a valid parsing of the sentence. But yes, you're right, the original wording certainly isn't very straightforward.

Hi David:

Here is an article that may help describe CCM. It contrasts it to Critical Path Method. I hope this helps as I find CCM very difficult to describe.

www.refresher.com/CriticalChainProjectManagement.pdf

Tracey

Can someone help me divide this sentence up into a logical structure so I can better understand? It seems very poorly structured.

P 178 of the PMBOK guide reads "The critical chain method uses activities with durations that do not include safety margins, logical relationships, and resource availability with statistically determined buffers composed of the aggregated safety margins of activities at specified points on the project schedule path to account for limited resources and project uncertainties."