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Well........
Agreed with both answers given by Mr.:Rafaat & Mr.:Salauddin for sure
I assume you are referring to Critical Path Method (CPM).
CPM is a visual and mathematical technique that gives managers the ability to effectively plan, schedule, and evaluate their projects. This is a useful tool in large projects when there are interdependant activities in a project.
The critical path method helps project manager to identify the most important activities, which can impact the project schedule (Critical path). As such, this tool is useful in creating project schedules and managing high-risk activities on the critical path.
Using CPM,
* PM can identify the activities that are most critical, which minizes the risk of going over-schedule.
* Project managers can determine float (slack) of each activity, i.e, how long an activity come in late without it impacting the project schedule.
* Project manager can reduce the project duration by optimizing the critical path and using compression techniques
* Increase visibility of impact of schedule revisions, when major milestones have been missed or when there is a risk of missing a major milestone
* Project manager can optimize efficiency by allocating resources appropriately, which can result in reduction in overall cost.
No need to add more after the answer by my brother Salauddin
The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a project modelling technique developed in the late1950s by Morgan R. Walker of DuPont and James E. Kelley, Jr. of Remington Rand, Kelley and Walker related their memories of the development of CPM in1989. Kelley attributed the term "critical path" to the developers of the Program Evaluation and Review Technique which was developed at about the same time by Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Navy. The precursors of what came to be known as Critical Path were developed and put into practice by DuPont between1940 and1943 and contributed to the success of the Manhattan Project
CPM is commonly used with all forms of projects, including construction, aerospace and defence, software development, research projects, product development, engineering, and plant maintenance, among others. Any project with interdependent activities can apply this method of mathematical analysis. Although the original CPM program and approach is no longer used, the term is generally applied to any approach used to analyze a project network logic diagram.
The essential technique for using CPM is to construct a model of the project that includes the following:
1. A list of all activities required to complete the project (typically categorized within a work breakdown structure),
2. The time (duration) that each activity will take to complete,
3. The dependencies between the activities and,
4. Logical end points such as milestones or deliverable items.
Using these values, CPM calculates the longest path of planned activities to logical end points or to the end of the project, and the earliest and latest that each activity can start and finish without making the project longer. This process determines which activities are "critical" (i.e., on the longest path) and which have "total float" (i.e., can be delayed without making the project longer). In project management, a critical path is the sequence of project network activities which add up to the longest overall duration. This determines the shortest time possible to complete the project. Any delay of an activity on the critical path directly impacts the planned project completion date (i.e. there is no float on the critical path). A project can have several, parallel, near critical paths. An additional parallel path through the network with the total durations shorter than the critical path is called a sub-critical or non-critical path.
CPM analysis tools allow a user to select a logical end point in a project and quickly identify its longest series of dependent activities (its longest path). These tools can display the critical path (and near critical path activities if desired) as a cascading waterfall that flows from the project's start (or current status date) to the selected logical end point.
Although the activity-on-arrow diagram ("PERT Chart") is still used in a few places, it has generally been superseded by the activity-on-node diagram, where each activity is shown.
After creating the CPM, we can analysis the network diagram through:
1- Critical chain method
2- Resource leveling
3- Resource smoothing
4- What-if analysis
5- Leads and lags analysis
Critical Path Method (CPM) would be self-explanatory in showing potential bottlenecks and limitations in your project . This is what it is for anyway !
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