A project-management technique that lays out all the activities needed to complete a task, the time it will take to complete each activity and the relationships between the activities. Sets out all the individual activities that make up a larger project. Shows the order in which activities have to be undertaken. Shows which activities can only take place once other activities have been completed.
Shows which activities can be undertaken simultaneously. Shows when certain resources will be needed. Once the Critical Path Analysis has been constructed, the business will be able to identify the Critical Path itself, which is the route on the Critical Path Analysis that has no spare times (float).
This means that if there is a delay in any of the activities of the critical path, the whole project is going to be delayed unless the firm changes something to aid bringing the project back onto track.
Some operations on the Critical Path Analysis may have some spare time, when this is the case the firm can afford to time some time in completing their project, so long as they do not exceed their spare time. The minimum time in which a project can be completed is the total time taken across the critical path. If a business has a project delayed, they can: Check to see whether they have any spare time in any other parts of the project, if they do they can switch staff from one activity to another to try aid in catching up on the delayed activity.
The Essay on Provide the definitions of critical path and critical chain
Critical path and critical chain are both schedule network analysis techniques. Critical path is the one that determines the shortest time to complete a project, which assumes low uncertainty ... of priority, thus leading to delay of activity or project with lower priority. Dependency: If two activities are serial relationship, which means one ...
They could also higher extra people to try help in catching up, though it will add to costs, it is essential as it helps in putting the project back on track and not being delayed. Key Rules: The CPA must always being and end with a ‘Node’ Nodes are numbered to represent what position they are in the activity, the Earliest Start Time (EST) of an activity, and also the Latest Finish Time (LFT).
In the CPA, there must be no crossings in activities Each activity is given a label to help identify the activity, in the case, the activity is called ‘D’ In order to find out the EST of the CPA, you have to start from 0, then keep adding the elapsed time of activity and always take the longest time of activity. On the last activity, the EST and the LFT must equal each other. In order to find out the LFT on the CPA, you must work backwards starting from the last activity. You have to subtract the elapsed time of activity from the previous activity, and always take the longest activity. CPA is a planning and project management tool.
Whilst it can help ensure a project is completed as quickly as possible, and resources used as efficiently as possible, it does depend on the accuracy of the information used. Just drawing up a CPA will not in itself ensure a project runs to plan; most projects encounter some delay or something unexpected, so managers need to use tool such as CPA to monitor the project and take swift action to rectify any problems.
