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    Q.3-Critical Path and Longest Path

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    abinashpatra
    The document discusses the critical path and longest path in project management. The critical path is the longest continuous chain of activities that determines the minimum overall project duration, where any delay will extend the finish date. The longest path controls early project completion and can change over time, determining the activities that affect the project completion date. Examples are provided to illustrate how the critical path and longest path can change based on delays to activities.

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    Q.3-Critical Path and Longest Path

    Uploaded by

    abinashpatra
    47 views2 pages
    The document discusses the critical path and longest path in project management. The critical path is the longest continuous chain of activities that determines the minimum overall project duration, where any delay will extend the finish date. The longest path controls early project completion and can change over time, determining the activities that affect the project completion date. Examples are provided to illustrate how the critical path and longest path can change based on delays to activities.

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    The document discusses the critical path and longest path in project management. The critical path is the longest continuous chain of activities that determines the minimum overall project duration, where any delay will extend the finish date. The longest path controls early project completion and can change over time, determining the activities that affect the project completion date. Examples are provided to illustrate how the critical path and longest path can change based on delays to activities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    47 views2 pages

    Q.3-Critical Path and Longest Path

    Uploaded by

    abinashpatra
    The document discusses the critical path and longest path in project management. The critical path is the longest continuous chain of activities that determines the minimum overall project duration, where any delay will extend the finish date. The longest path controls early project completion and can change over time, determining the activities that affect the project completion date. Examples are provided to illustrate how the critical path and longest path can change based on delays to activities.

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    Critical Path and Longest Path

    Critical Path
    It is the longest continuous chain of activities (may be more than one path) which
    establishes the minimum overall project duration. A slippage or delay in completion of any
    activity by one time period will extend final completion correspondingly. The critical path by
    definition has no “float.” By mathematical definition, any activity with a TF of 0 is a critical
    activity. This is logical, since TF is the float available to an activity before it starts impacting
    the finish date of the project. By application of this principle, the chain of all critical activities
    will run straight through start-finish, thereby equaling the project’s duration. Thus, critical
    path defines the project duration at the beginning.

    Longest Path
    It is the longest continuous path of activities through a project, which controls project early
    completion. It is possible for otherwise defined critical path activities to not be on the
    longest path and longest path activities to not show calculated critical float.

    Activity A, 12 days
    1

    2
    Activity B, 15 days

    Consider the following example. A project involves 2 activities


    A and B which take 12 and 15 days respectively. Here at the commencement of the project,
    Activity B is critical, and the activity A has a float of 3 days. Now, if the start of project is
    delayed by 3 days, the float of activity a gets consumed completely. The TF of path A now
    becomes 0, and thus it becomes a critical activity by definition when we consider backward
    pass for contractual finish date. However, the project duration is still calculated based on
    the activity B, which was the original critical path. Therefore, irrespective of mathematical
    definition, not all critical activities will affect the project finish. Only the activities on longest
    path affect the project completion date.

    However, the longest path may change from predefined route during the course of the
    project. This is explained by the following example in the next page.
    A B
    C
    D E
    START END
    F H
    G

    Here in this example, let duration of activity A be 3, B be 4, C be 2, D be 5, E be 1, F be 2, G


    be 4, and H be 1. So the critical path is ABC, with duration of 9 days. Path DE has a
    shared float of 3 days, and path FGH has a shared float of 2 days. But if activity F gets
    delayed by say 3 days, the shared float of FGH gets exhausted, and it now has a
    negative float of -1. Thus, in this case G and H become critical activities, and the project
    completion date now depends on the activities F, G and H. Thus, longest path gets redefined
    during the course of the project, and the previously critical path now has a float of 1 day.

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