A critical path is the set of project’s activities that will greatly have an effect on the on-time project completion. It is important for project managers to identify the critical path of a project so that checkpoints can be set within the duration of project activities and countermeasures can be prepared so that project will be completed on time. It is one of the key steps in project planning and is usually included in business analyst training related to project management.
To identify the project’s critical path, the following steps must be performed. The first thing to do is to list all the activities necessary in the completion of the project. A work breakdown structure will be very helpful so that the activities are broken down in small detailed activities.
After the activities or tasks are listed, the next thing needed is to have an estimate on the duration of each task. This estimate should be as accurate as possible so that the critical path that will be identified is also correct and accurate. Historical data and time study are some possible sources for project activity estimation.
Next is to identify the activity dependencies of the task, which is identifying which task should be completed before the start of another task. After all dependencies are listed, a network diagram can be derived showing all project activities, their duration and dependencies. The critical path can be identified by identifying the longest path of the activities.
By identifying the critical path, the earliest time that each activity should start and the latest time that each activity should end can also be identified. Together with other project management tools that can be learned from different business systems analyst training, determining the project’s critical path can be a key step toward the success of the project.