Knowledge Area : Project Schedule Management

Once the project scope of work is well understood and captured in the form of a work breakdown structure, then all these work packages will have to be scheduled to complete all the work as per an overall time deadline. All the work packages (which are smaller deliverables) are further decomposed into ACTIVITIES, all the activities are sequenced based on the dependencies between them, duration estimation of each task is done and finally a project schedule is prepared.

The project schedule will look like a network diagram connecting all the activities from the beginning till the end. There will be MULTIPLE paths in the network diagram, since there will be many parallel tasks also running (where there is no dependency), with DIFFERENT scheduled activities. Activities in all the paths of the project network will have to be completed to complete the project.

The overall minimum project duration to complete all the work will be the duration of the path having the longest duration. This path with longest duration is the minimum time to complete the project as a whole. This longest path is referred as “critical path”.

“Critical path” is the most important path to monitor. All the activities on the critical path must be completed in time to complete the project in time. Hence the only rational and CLEAR method for completing the project in time is to ensure that all the critical activities (all activities on critical path) must not be delayed and must be completed in time.

Hence identification and management of the “critical path” is a must for completing the project in a timely manner. There is no flexibility as such on the critical path.

For more detailed understanding of critical path, refer to: critical path method cpm