Removing task from critical path

[Bobby]

Is there a way of showing the critical path for a subset of the entire
project?

I would like to show the critical path - up to a particular stage in
the project - not the entire project.

The problem is that two later tasks dominate the critical path and I
would like to know what is critical to lead to an earlier stage in the
project.

Cheers.

Bobby

 

[Jim Aksel]

Critical path is that path through the project where the activities have 0
slack. It applies to the project as a whole, not the pieces. There is a
macro, somewhere on this site (Or Google this newsgroup) that is supposed to
analyze the chain of tasks that lead to a specific task. I have hheard of
this macro, but have not been able to find it.

What I do is to split the project into multiple subprojects. Put all the
activites you want to analyze into one project, the remainder (later) tasks
into another. Then you can examine the critical paths of the two smaller
projects. However, this is not the same thing as a critical path analysis
for your entire project. The success depends entirely on your ability to
identify the task chains appropriately and to define the subtier projects as
complete projects within themselves.

One example may be to put hardwre development, software develoment, and
documentation development into three projects. However, the three do have a
lot of interplay, so be careful. This will help certain departments focus on
which activities they must perform to meet their deliverable dates.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Jim,

For your reference, the macro you are referring to is called the Trace
Macro and can be found at:

http://masamiki.com/project/macros.htm

I hope this helps.
Julie

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information about
Microsoft Project.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Thanks Julie. I think between these two answers Bobby should get along
nicely. Bobby - post back if you need more help