17.3. The Critical Path
"The last thing is the critical path. The critical path is simply the path with the least amount of float." I looked around the table. "In this project there are two paths: start-A-D-M-Z-end, and start-A-D-LZ- end. Which one is critical? Call out the letters of the path as I go and I'll make it with a double line." When we were done the chartlooked like this:
"As you can see, finding the critical path is simple—no math required. You just find the path with the least amount of float. Nowwhy would we care about the critical path?"
"Because it's critical?" Mark said, only half joking.
Sheila said, "Because it's the path that takes the longest to complete."
"Exactly! Does everyone see that? It's the longest path and therefore it determines how long the project will be." Everyone nodded their head in agreement, making me feel that perhaps I had oversimplified things. In fact, as Martha had explained, there was no simplification involved. There wasn't any complication involved either. I had just shown my team everything we needed to understand about putting the execution plan together.
Get Making It Happen: A Non-Technical Guide to Project Management now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
