how does project work out a critical task?

[New2Project]

Just wondering, how does Project work out whether a task is critical? Is it
when you set a task to 'Finish no later than'?

How do you then also make a task critical?

Thanks

 

[John]

Just wondering, how does Project work out whether a task is critical? Is it
when you set a task to 'Finish no later than'?

How do you then also make a task critical?

Thanks

New2Project,
Yes, Project calculates critical path based on one of two things. Either
it encounters a constrained task (e.g. finish-no-later-than) or the last
task in the plan (which often is constrained to meet some end goal
milestone).

Critical path is based on the setting for Total Slack (see
Tools/Options/Calculation tab - bottom of the Options window). Normally
the idea is to get tasks OFF the critical path (otherwise the plan isn't
going to finish on time). Tasks become critical when they slip or
otherwise are moved to cause their Total Slack to be equal to or less
than the critical path setting.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi New2Project ,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might like to see how a critical path is built up here:
http://www.mvps.org/project/networkanalysis.htm.

Also, you might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, 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

wrote:

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

You don't "make a task critical." Criticality is a property of the task's
slack time - tasks with a slack of 0 or less are critical. If the task
could be delayed any amount of time at all without affecting a successor
task or the project finish, it's not critical no matter how important it is.
When a task is critical it essentially means that if you want to finish
on-time, you need to pay special attention to those tasks so they don't
slip. Project is telling you what tasks it's determined you NEED to focus
on - IMHO you shouldn't be trying to tell it what tasks you WANT to focus
on.