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Benefit of Identifying Critical Path

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Puneet Verma Sr. Web Developer | CAPM | Webmaster | ZEDEDA Delhi, India
How is critical path helpful in real life project scenarios. I could understand that critical path method is a technique that allows us to identify tasks that are necessary for project completion. But does this means we can ignore activities which are not on critical path? Kindly clarify. 
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Puneet -

I would recommend reviewing the Practice Standard for Scheduling for greater detail, but in short:

1. Critical path method helps identifying the duration of a project and those tasks which do or don't have slack. This helps in activities such as resource levelling, schedule optimization and monitoring and control. It also helps you understand the impacts of changes to certain activities on the schedule as a whole.

2. No - because the critical path can change through the life of a project, and if you have a near critical non-critical path whose tasks get delayed sufficiently, it can become a new critical path.

Kiron
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1 reply by Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
Mar 13, 2024 10:17 AM
Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
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Thanks Sir Kiron!
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Aaron Porter
Community Champion
IT Director| Blade HQ Payson, UT, United States
Knowing the critical path is most helpful when you need to determine ways to speed up the project. It helps you identify which parts of the schedule can be more easily compressed and the tasks where you may need to get a little creative, if they can be sped up.
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Puneet, I totally agree with everything Kiron mentioned so don't have much to add except also recommending you review the Scheduling Practice Standard!
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P Vijayan SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER/LEAD PROJECT ENGINEER ( PIPING DESIGN)| Engineers India Limited, New delhi New Delhi, India
Once Critical Path is identified, risk analysis shall be the first one to be done. If the risk is not identified in the initial stage it would severely impact the project's critical path and delay the project completion. So Mitigate the risk by taking proactive actions to reduce its probability & impact in the critical path.
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Abolfazl Yousefi Darestani Manager, Quality and Continuous Improvement| Hörmann-TNR Industrial Doors Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
I agree with Kiron.
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Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
Community Champion
Financial Management Specialist | US Peace Corps Yaounde, Centre, Cameroon
Mar 12, 2024 10:49 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Puneet -

I would recommend reviewing the Practice Standard for Scheduling for greater detail, but in short:

1. Critical path method helps identifying the duration of a project and those tasks which do or don't have slack. This helps in activities such as resource levelling, schedule optimization and monitoring and control. It also helps you understand the impacts of changes to certain activities on the schedule as a whole.

2. No - because the critical path can change through the life of a project, and if you have a near critical non-critical path whose tasks get delayed sufficiently, it can become a new critical path.

Kiron
Thanks Sir Kiron!

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