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How to Discover Critical Path on a Gantt Chart

The Critical Path Method (CPM) is an algorithm for scheduling a set of project activities. It is an important tool for effective project management. ConceptDraw PROJECT implements this method to provide the user with a wide set of project management tools.

To display a critical path on the Gantt chart, open the View tab and check the Critical Path option in the Show/Hide section. Now you can see which tasks are most critical: the ones that add up to the longest project duration.

How to Discover Critical Path on a Gantt Chart *

Pic. 1. Critical path on a Gantt chart.

ConceptDraw PROJECT automatically calculates tasks’ Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start and Late Finish dates, as well as Early Slack, and Late Slack duration. To display these values, you should customize the columns in the table part of the window. Right-click (CTRL-click on Macs without a two-button mouse) on the project data column header, in the Column Customization window, select appropriate columns and click OK.

Column customization in ConceptDraw PROJECT

Pic. 2. Column Customization window.

If you have a project that contains several related projects, you may need to determine their common critical path.To determine overall critical path, open the File menu and click Properties. In the Document Properties window open the Advanced tab and uncheck the Calculate independent critical path for each project option. You can also determine the slack time for tasks to be considered critical.

Critical path on a multiproject Gantt chart

Pic. 3. Critical path on a Multiproject dashboard.



Video. Critical Path Method in ConceptDraw PROJECT








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