Critical path

[Ollie the Otter]

I am trying to understand Critical Path and the 2 project schedules I am
currently working with don't appear to be showing critical path according to
the documentation I am reading.

What I am seeing:
1. Many tasks with no successors are depicted in Red - my understanding is
as long I have NOT requested Projects to Calculate multiple critical paths
only the task with the latest Finish date and no successors should be used to
determine critical path.
2. Stand alone tasks are depicted in Red - I am guessing this is due to the
task having no slack time - I should read up on slack time more but it is my
understanding that this occurs when a Precessor finishes before a Start no
earlier than constraint is reach (for example.)
3. Task occurring at the same time but not linked are depicted in Red.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

All tasks with a "Must" constraint and
All tasks with an As Late As Possible Constraint

Are critical tasks

HTH

 

[Jim Aksel]

Critial path is determined by tasks with 0 Slack. To see Total Slack, insert
a total slack column.

Tasks with long durations can obscure your real critical path. For example,
I am working one now that has 76 days "Program Management" and it is all red.
This task has no business being on the critical path.

Some rules of thumb -
Generally a task without predessors or successors should not be on the
critical path ... but Project doesn't know that since it is really only
looking at durations and then adding predessor constraints as commanded by
the user to get a :duration chain"

For "Level of Effort" tasks, like Program Manager, they could be broken into
smaller units or deliverables identified. Question? Does doing this add
value? Probably not.

Vertical Line Test -- pass a vertical line through your tasks mentally. If
a task is the only thing going on that day, it is on the critical path --- no
matter what it is.

 

[Ollie the Otter]

Thanks, that is interesting to know, however one particular task I am
depicting in red is "Start No Earlier Than" 7/16/07 (in this case), shows 0%
complete and has no Predecessors.

Your thoughts on this are appreciated.

 

[davegb]

I am trying to understand Critical Path and the 2 project schedules I am
currently working with don't appear to be showing critical path according to
the documentation I am reading.

What I am seeing:
1. Many tasks with no successors are depicted in Red - my understanding is
as long I have NOT requested Projects to Calculate multiple critical paths
only the task with the latest Finish date and no successors should be used to
determine critical path.
2. Stand alone tasks are depicted in Red - I am guessing this is due to the
task having no slack time - I should read up on slack time more but it is my
understanding that this occurs when a Precessor finishes before a Start no
earlier than constraint is reach (for example.)
3. Task occurring at the same time but not linked are depicted in Red.

Any help is appreciated.

Some, if not all, of your problems can be fixed by simply enforcing
Schedule Continuity. This means that every working task (does not
include Summary Lines) should have at least one predecessor and one
successor. It's fairly simple to do simply by adding 2 milestones to
your project, a "Start" milestone and a "Finish" milestone. Every task,
other than Summary Lines and recurring tasks, like weekly meetings,
should then be linked on both sides. If in fact, you actually have a
task that could be done at any time during the project, it's
predecessor becomes "Start" and it's successor becomes "Finish". When
everything is tied in, in most cases, you CP will be clear. Of course,
it you have more than one path that are the same length and no paths
that are longer, you'll still have multiple critical paths.

Hope this helps in your world.