Integrated Project Management

Critical Path Details

With every project, at least one stream of tasks has no slack between any of the sequenced tasks. Each task, except the first, depends upon completion of a predecessor before it can commence. Many tasks have more than one predecessor. The last completed predecessor determines the successor task's start date.

Predecessors that finish earlier leave some slack time before the critical task successor begins. Therefore, if non-critical tasks finish late but do not utilize all their slack time, the project timeline is not affected. Also, if there is plenty of slack (that is, slack is greater than the possible time over run of the non critical path task), these tasks do not have to start as soon as possible. It is important, however, ...