Defining a Critical Path

[Twinkletoes1971]

Can anyone tell me if there is an Easy way to define a critical path in MSP.
I don;t want to base it on the slack time on tasks I actually want to base it
on the milestones and tasks linked to them within the project.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Twinkletoes1971 ,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Project is based on the Critical Path Method for producing the network and
its critical path. This is a mathematical calculation and cannot be
changed. If you're not sure of this, have a look at my series on Microsoft
Project in the TechTrax ezine, particularly #1 and the link to Network
Analysis, at this site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the articles before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Adding to Mike's comment - there is a specific technical definition of the
term "critical path" in the project management world and MS Project
calculates it based on that definition. The critical path is the sequence
of tasks that determines the overall project duration. You can trace many
other pathways through the project, basing them on any criteria that you
might choose, but only the sequence of tasks with slack times of zero or
less can legitimately be called the critical path. You can choose to call
oranges "mini-basketballs" if you want to but no one else will understand
what you're talking about if you do. <grin>

 

[Jim Aksel]

One additional tidbit concerning the other two posts. The official
definition of critical path are those tasks with at most 0 slack time.
However, Project does allow you to specifiy a different level of slack before
a task turns critical. For instance, you may wish to have tasks with slack
of 2 days or less be critical (as opposed to the 0 day official definition).

To do so, slecect: Tools/Options... pull the Calculation Tab. Near the
bottom of that dialog box is a spin box allowing you to set the value to an
positive integer, 0 or greater.

If you inteneded something else by "Critical Path" please clarify in your
post and we'll be happy to assist you.