Critical Path vs. Critical Chain: Benefits, Differences, and Software to Find Vital Tasks
Organizations all over the world use the critical path method (CPM) for professional project scheduling. Nevertheless, a comprehensive analysis of project management issues stemming from this approach led to the development of the more advanced critical chain method (CCM).
While similar at first, CPM and CCM differ significantly.
Let’s explore the critical path vs. critical chain differences as well as a vivid example of using them with a reliable critical path planner.
What is the power of the critical path method?
The critical path method is applied to identify the crucial sequence of tasks and activities necessary for ensuring the project’s successful and timely completion. CPM allows teams to visualize their task flow with ease.
Professionals most often use an online Gantt chart for a more detailed visual representation of this method.
The critical path method entails determining early start (ES), early finish (EF), late start (LS), and late finish (LF) via forward and backward passes in a project schedule diagram. This aids project managers in assessing activity buffers or their absence along the planned path.
Critical tasks should not be postponed, as doing so you’ll get project delays. Conversely, completing activities on the critical path ahead of schedule will expedite the entire project.
What are the roots of CPM?
CPM originated in the USA in the late 1950s. It was developed by two engineers, James Kelley Jr. and Morgan Walker. Their initial endeavors focused on the planning and supervision of maintenance projects. Over time, this evolved into the adoption of the critical path method in construction.
Today, CPM is extensively employed across diverse sectors to schedule and oversee both straightforward and intricate projects. Prominent instances of its application can be observed in software development, construction, manufacturing, healthcare, and other fields.
CPM benefits
The advantages and disadvantages of CPM are a popular topic for discussion among professional PMs. However, the strengths of the method prevail.
Below are the most evident benefits of the critical path method.
Now let’s get more details about the second approach from our review.
What is the power of the critical chain method?
The critical chain method is built upon the foundation of CPM.
Managers use CCM to enhance project planning, scheduling, and execution efficiency. While it shares similarities with CPM, its primary focus lies on resource constraints and project buffers.
This method advocates a project approach akin to a relay race, where each task should be swiftly completed before transitioning to the next participant, emphasizing the overarching goal over individual tasks.
In implementing CCM, project managers (PMs) should estimate the project’s completion time and allocate 50% of this duration as the baseline in project planning. The remaining time functions as a buffer for managing tasks and potential additional activities that may arise towards the project’s conclusion.
What are the CCM roots?
CMM, introduced by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt in the early 1990s, also aimed to enhance work scheduling and performance in project management.
Goldratt’s key ideas included using time estimates with 50% uncertainty overlap, protecting performers from management pressure for missed deadlines, focusing on project completion dates rather than individual task deadlines, incorporating time buffers for uncertainty, and introducing alerts and temporary reserves for resource allocation.
This approach gained popularity in various industries, including manufacturing project management.
CMM benefits
The critical path vs. critical chain can be compared based on their key benefits.
The key advantage of CCM lies in its ability to generate an optimal schedule model, including planned completion dates for all project activities, by inputting scheduled activities, resources, durations, and logical relationships into a critical path Gantt chart or similar diagram.
Explore some distinguishing features of the critical chain method compared to its simplified version.
How to enable a critical path with a professional project management tool
Project managers use different solutions to identify a critical path online. Many of them allow for building a handy Gantt chart for this aim.
One of the best and reliable solutions based on a Gantt diagram is GanttPRO.
This powerful Gantt chart tool enables detailed project scheduling by arranging tasks in the desired order. With it, you’ll quickly grasp the ease of project planning, task management, progress tracking, and resource allocation in project management.
When it comes to identifying crucial project tasks, a single click in GanttPRO reveals these activities on your timeline.
Wondering how to utilize the critical path feature in GanttPRO? Let’s explore it.
1. Initiate your project and create a timeline
It all begins with ideas. If you’re certain of their feasibility and prepared to transform your initiatives into actionable tasks, it’s time to add them to an online timeline. This process won’t take much time and can be expedited through teamwork.
2. Create tasks and subtasks
To arrange your tasks in a structured manner, you require a reliable system.
GanttPRO offers a work breakdown structure for task distribution and subtask definition, presenting them logically.
Taking into account task start and end dates, as well as their durations, is crucial during this phase. Equally vital is the assignment of project activities to team members, and in GanttPRO, you can accomplish this swiftly.
3. Add task dependencies and mark project milestones
The next step in determining a critical path involves linking tasks and identifying the most significant ones. In GanttPRO, you can easily connect dependent tasks using the drag-and-drop feature.
Marking important milestones is also straightforward, requiring just a single click for visualization. You can observe this in the illustration below.
4. Enable a critical path
Once all tasks, deadlines, dependencies, and milestones are clearly displayed on a Gantt chart, you can identify the project’s critical path.
In GanttPRO, activating this essential task sequence only requires a few seconds. To do so, simply click the button located in the top left corner of your screen.
The platform will reveal the path instantly. The sequence of crucial tasks in your project will be displayed in red.
The concise steps outlined above demonstrate GanttPRO’s role and professional capabilities in identifying key tasks and their order in a project.
Every project is unique, with its own specific aspects and complexities. However, by following the steps mentioned earlier, you can efficiently identify the sequence within your project, regardless of whether you choose the critical chain or critical path method.
Conclusion
Critical path vs. critical chain are two PM approaches that assess essential project tasks and their sequencing. However, they employ distinct strategies to aid project managers in achieving their objectives. Each method, CPM and CCM, possesses its own merits, with the selection contingent upon project-specific requirements and limitations.
Opt for the suitable approach between critical path vs. critical chain and utilize professional project management software such as GanttPRO for efficient identification and management of critical paths.
This post is a brief summary of the full article about critical path vs. critical chain. To read the full version, follow this link https://blog.ganttpro.com/en/critical-path-vs-critical-chain/.
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