1. Manjari Akella Pranava Nagpal B-Tech(CSE) 4 th Year

2. What is it? Why do need it ? How it Works? Critical Path How to Identify Critical Path ? Example Alternative method

3. Algorithm for scheduling a set of project activities Important tool for effective project management Applied to any approach which is used to analyze a project network logic diagram Provides a graphical view of the project Predicts the time required to complete a project Identifies activities critical to maintaining schedule

4. Allows to monitor achievement of project goals Helps to see where remedial action needs to be taken to get a project back on course Allows to prioritize activities for the effective management of project completion Useful tool for scheduling the dependencies and controlling a project Efficient way of shortening time and scheduling project in given timeframe Allows to shorten the planned critical path of a project by pruning critical path activities, by fast tracking and/or crashing the critical path

5. Before using CPM, a project model is constructed that includes - List of all activities required to complete the project Time duration that each activity will take for completion The dependencies between the activities Using these values, CPM calculates – Critical Path Earliest and latest each activity can start and finish without making the project longer

6. CPM determines – Critical Activities, i.e. cannot be delayed Activities having float, i.e. can be delayed Total float-delay without effecting the project completion date Free float-delay without effecting the subsequent tasks

7. Sequence of project network activities which add up to the longest overall duration Represents the shortest time needed to complete a project If an activity of this path is delayed, the project will be delayed If project needs to be accelerated, the times for critical path activities should be reduced

8. Can be identified by determining the following parameters for each activity - Earliest Start: earliest time at which an activity can start given that its preceding activities are completed Earliest Finish: Earliest Start + Time taken to complete the activity Latest Finish: latest time at which activity can be finished without delaying the project Latest Start: Latest Finish – Time taken to complete the activity

9. Slack Time: Represents the amount of time by which the activity can be delayed LS-ES or LF-EF Critical Path: Path consisting of all activities whose slack time is zero ES=LS or EF=LF

11. CPM used for complex but routine projects – where uncertainty is low For fairly less routine projects, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) is used It takes into account uncertainty and allows to specifiy a range of duration for each activity