RE: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Critical Paths

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This came up today at the office... convenient timing. As Trever pointed
out, tasks become critical when Total Float <= (stated number of days,
usually 0).

As such, Project has no real way to determine a "path" comprising a 1st,
2nd, 3rd tier critical path. 0 slack is 0 slack, the critical path is just a
listing of the tasks with Total Slack less than a specfiied value
(Tools/Options/Calculation tab).

The example is this. Consider working the schedule as a backward pass from
the end date. You will trace only tasks with 0 (or less) total slack.
Eventually you will come to a branch where both the predecessors are on the
critical path. So pick one at random. You trace that back and run into the
same situation. See how it is impossible for project to dertermine which is
the 1st path and which is the second?

You might consider assigning priorities to the tasks on the critical path.
You can sort or filter on that priority and that would establish paths for
you. Other than that, it is all in the math.
--
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Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com



"Sandra" wrote:

Can Microsoft Project calculate the secondary and tertiary critical paths
through the schedule? If so, what is the method to illustrate the secondary
and tertiary paths?

Thank you
.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: Total Slack index for last task
    ... deadline after the scheduled finish of a task and seeing total slack ... the Late Finish date for tasks and does affect Total Slack ... The display of critical path in the Gantt chart view can be modified ... are seeing is to schedule the project from a fixed finish date ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: Negative Slack
    ... incredibly easy to create beautiful appearing plans that are really just ... display the total slack column and sort by it. ... > negative total slack in my schedule. ... > and schedule it around key deliverables. ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: Finsh No Later Than Constraints
    ... the last 2 columns Free Slack and Total Slack - the planning wizard message ... see if you can "tweak" your schedule to eliminate the negative total slack. ... No Later Than constraint on a milestone task at the end of the project to ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • 2.6.8-rc1-mm1 "Badness in schedule" on ppc32
    ... >> calls to schedule() occur. ... "Badness in schedule" during boot. ... Call trace: ... send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: HOw to set LS, ES, LF, EF in project 2007?
    ... Finish + Total Slack = Late Finish ... Project will calculate all of these automatically given a project start date, task durations and dependencies. ... So don't do that if you want to avoid schedule constraints. ...
    (microsoft.public.project)