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Home > Departments > Methods & Means
Critical Path has been around for a while, with proven benefits in identifying and managing project delays, but it is still often misunderstood or neglected. In part five of the Total Project Control series, the author proposes two additional metrics to bring greater visibility to the value of the critical path method.
This is the fifth article in a series exploring, summarizing and expanding on the techniques, metrics and implications of a methodology called Total Project Control (TPC), which focuses on managing and demonstrating project value.
In the previous article of this series — “Delay Tactics” — we explored the detrimental effect of time on the project investment, and how to quantify that impact. But what eats up that time? What are the things in our project that extend its duration, determining how long we must wait for the deliverables that generate our investment’s value?
Let’s see … the cause of project delays is often due to development work that is scientifically complex … or a resource’s availability is in short supply … or there is rework, made necessary when a component failed to pass a test … or a baton is dropped while performing the handoff between two activities … or there a customer, user or sponsor who fails to provide needed feedback or approval in a timely manner … or there is a failure to recognize the need for urgency, through indolence or incompetence or ignorance … or it is a combination of many or all of the above?
Isn’t it wonderful in life when there is a simple answer to a question of causation? When we can point to one specific thing as the reason something happened? Believe it or not, there is a very simple answer as to what delays the completion of a project — of every project — it’s called the critical path! Whichever of the seven items above is the original cause of the delay, the immediate or proximate cause is the impact of that item on what turns out to be the project’s critical path.
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