
69Chapter four: Managing project time
measurement of how much time an activity can slip without delaying
any other activity. But notice: both total oat and free oat only occur
on noncritical activities. If an activity is on the critical path, what does
the software tell us about it? Answer: zero. It tells us that its total oat is
zero, which is the same thing as just repeating back to us that it is on the
critical path.
Okay, so here is the trick question. What is more critical: informa-
tion about something that is critical or about something that is not
critical? There is an old saying that what is measured is what you pay
attention to. I ...