What Role Does Critical Path Method Play in Project Planning
Critical path method project planning allows you to have a look at the head and the tail of your project: which means, you know when the best time to start the project is and what things could affect the completion of the project. At every look you have a complete understanding of where your project is standing as well as the knowledge of components that could delay or expedite your project.
However, this must be remembered that you need to have information about all the processes and activities that will be involved in completing the project. Only when you have all the information about all that is involved in the project will you be able to draw a diagram that actually helps you in planning the project.
While CPM has been used in its modified forms recently for about 6 decades now but there are still questions on the internet about its working and effectiveness in completing the project. Here are a few benefits that use of critical path method plays in project planning.
Critical Path Method Project Planning
Helps In Decision Making Process
The most important quality in a leader is to make a decision, especially a right one. There are many moments in a project where you have to take abrupt decisions or change the ones you have already taken. Of course, it is not an ideal world to everything will not go exactly as you have expected it to happen. You might be waiting for goods or raw material required in your project but bad weather could delay the process and that’s when you have to take initiatives.
When you implement the critical path method, you have an idea about each activity and process individually since you plot all of them separately. This easily gives you an idea of which activities could be compromised for a particular duration to make up for the ones delaying. Consequently, it enables a project manager to take decisions without getting into a quandary.
Helps With Allocation Of Resources
This is probably one of the best benefits of using the critical path method technique when planning for a project. Allocation of resource is what decides how your project is completed efficiently. Even when you have a lot of people available and working on your project, the main goal is to deploy them in the right numbers and right places.
You wouldn’t want five people working in a department where two people could suffice. At the same time, you don’t want more productive people working in a process considered less critical for the completion of your project. The individual insight into all the processes and people busy in making it work give you a clear idea of where and how you could deploy your resources.
Helps In Working With Deadlines
If you are working on projects, you are working with deadlines. Of course, the completion of a project directly impacts the reputation and image of your company. If you are a construction company for example, a delayed completion of the project could really become a spot on your portfolio. At the same time, you are working with different companies to complete a project and by keeping the grace days undisclosed, you could actually have many tasks performed before the actual deadline.
Helps With Dependent Processes
One of the important aspects of planning and executing a project successfully is to have your processes streamlined by removing the bottlenecks and blockages in the conduits. It is one of the integral parts of critical path method to know the dependencies of different processes.
Sometimes, while you are focusing on one project, the delay in another project delays many with it. To avoid delay in a project just because of one intrinsic process, it is better to deploy more resources to expedite all of them and finish all processes in time.
There are many other benefits that you can obtain by implementing this indispensable technique but you will know them once you have practically made use of it.
The Project Management Institute offers a number of online courses, to advance your knowledge in Project Management.