critical path reference

[johnston]

Can someone recommend a source that offers a comprehensive explanation about
how MS Project 2003 determines the critical path? I have stumbled over
several instances that make no sense to me. As an example, in one case four
tasks were linked in series FS, but only the first and fourth task were on
the critical path. As another example, I had entered a duration of 7 emonths
that had a slack time of 0.1 emonths, which I assume would be about 3 days.
Later I changed the critical path calculation to count as critical any task
that had five or less days of slack, but the task still did not appear on
the critical path.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Johnston,

Be carefull in your interpretation of critical path when you are using
elapsed durations.
For exemple Task A : Duration 5ed, finishes on Friday at 18:00
Its successor Task B : Duration 5d, cannot start before Monday at 8:00.
Task A could go on until Monday 8:00 so Project consider it has 2,63 days
slack, it is not critical while B is a critical task.

Hope this helps,

Gérard Ducouret

 

[johnston]

Gerard,

Your response was quite helpful. I had not appreciated the problem of using
elapsed durations. Since I'm more interested in tracking the critical path
than in an accurate completion date, can you suggest an alternative that
approximates etime but is better for tracking the critical path?

Thank you.