The Business Book

328

A PROJECT WITHOUT A

CRITICAL PATH IS LIKE A

SHIP WITHOUT A RUDDER

CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Planning procedures

KEY DATES

1814 Napoleon’s invasion of

Russia fails because the

Grande Armée is not equipped

with the type of clothing

needed to survive the winter.

1910 US mechanical engineer

Henry Gantt invents the Gantt

chart, which shows start and

finish dates for all activities

that need to be completed in

order to finish a project.

1959 Morgan Walker and

James Kelley publish their

groundbreaking paper

“Critical Path Planning

and Scheduling.”

1997 In his book Golden

Chain, Israeli physicist Eliyahu

Goldratt advises managers to

plan for uncertainties by

creating “resource buffers,”

which can be deployed to solve

problems when they arise.

A project without a critical path is like

a ship without a rudder.

When possible, activities are planned to run

simultaneously to save time.

Critical activities that, if delayed, will stop the project from

being completed on time are highlighted.

These activities are ordered in a logical sequence.

In a good strategy plan, all the activities that must be completed

in order to finish a project are identified.

T

o minimize the amount of

time needed to complete a

complex project, managers

frequently use a process known as

critical path analysis (CPA). CPA

was developed by mathematicians

Morgan Walker and James Kelley,

and was first used in 1957 by the

chemical manufacturer, DuPont, to

schedule a program of factory

closures in the most cost-effective

way. By following Walker’s and