Creating the Critical Path - Assignment Example

As per the planned activities of the project, there exist relationships between the activities include: start to start and end to start.

Keeping in view these facts, the above-given diagram shows activities having two colors blue and red. The activities in the blue color are noncritical activities; however, the activities in red are critical. The combination of red activities which flow till the end of the project develops the critical path meaning delaying one of the critical activities (red) can delay the completion of the project. From the above, the activities on the critical path include six (6) to eleven (11), sixteen (16), seventeen (17), and twenty-one (21) to twenty-six (26). Therefore, the project manager along with the project team is required to concentrate on the critical activities, so that these activities are completed as per the planned time and ultimately complete the project within time. However, on the other hand, the blue/noncritical activities can be delayed to a certain point and this concept is known as the slack or float. And if the activity delays more than the slack or float, then this noncritical activity becomes critical as well. For instance, activity number eighteen (18) titled “Meetings’ can be delayed for eight (8) days, however, if the same activity delays for nine (9) or more days, then this activity becomes critical. And the project team requires to focus on this activity to avoid delay in the completion time of the project.

Factors Causing Deviations from the Critical Path

In order to complete the project within the agreed and specified deadline, it is significant to follow the critical path of the project. And there are various factors that can result in the deviation from the critical path of the project. These factors include but are not limited to the following (Gardiner, 2005):

1. Unrealistic schedule of the project activities (poor schedule planning),
2. The negative impact of the inter / external project risks,

• Lacking Project Management skills

1. Allocation of inappropriate human and technical resources in the activities
2. The communication gap between team members as well as the stakeholders (customer/client/vendor, etc.)
3. Unskilled team members

Results of deviating from the critical path

Precisely, a project can say to be a failure, if the project objectives are not achieved within the agreed deadline. It is pertinent to mention here that a delay in single critical activity leads to a delay in the whole project from the prescribed deadline. Therefore, one of the major results of deviating from the critical path is the delay in the project completion date. However, there are certain other results include: an increase in the agreed cost/budget of the project, and the project would not to be said as a quality project. Simply, it can be stated that the following critical path is significant. And if by any means, the project team deviates from the critical path, the project management techniques should be utilized to bring the project again to the critical path (Meredith, and Mantel, 2008).

Triple Constraint of a Project

The triple constraint of a project includes the time (deadline), cost (budget), and scope (user/client requirements). A project can be a failure if one of the triple constraints (schedule, cost, and scope) is not met by the project. The quality of a project is based on the completion of the project within the triple constraints i-e the project should be completed within the specified deadline; cost and all the user requirements should be achieved. The complete project management concepts, tools, and techniques are utilized just to achieve the triple constraints of project management. Therefore, it is stated that the triple constraints are the core issues or characteristics of the project management on which the success or failure of the project is based (Runyan, 2013).