The Business Book

(Joyce) #1

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
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