Quantitative Tools of Project Management

CHAPTER 2

The Critical Path Method

Key points:

• Presentation and demonstration of the critical path method
• Description of various types of slack
• Description of resource leveling and smoothing
• Presentation of conflicts arising from multiple project scheduling
• Discussion of criticisms of the critical path method

The critical path method provides a way to easily identify the soonest a project can be completed, given that the estimated durations of activities are accurate. Even though estimated durations are usually at variance with actual outcomes, the critical path method provides a useful analysis of which activities are time bottlenecks. The input to the critical path method is a list of each activity, its expected duration, and those activities ...