Let’s talk, in this article, about the Critical Path Method (CPM) or Critical Path Analysis (CPA). Developed in the late 50’s by the US Navy and Du Pont, CPM is commonly used with all forms of projects, including construction, software development, research projects, product development, engineering, and plant maintenance, among others, the CPM is is a mathematically based algorithm for scheduling a set of project activities and it’s an important tool to for effective project management.
Planning a project usually involves dividing it into a number of small tasks that can be assigned to individuals or teams. The project’sschedule depends on the duration of these tasks and the sequence in which they are arranged. This sequence can be driven by several factors: customer deadlines, availability of personnel or resources, and dependencies among tasks. The last factor is the subject of this paper—in particular, how this sequence can affect the project’s duration and its finish date.
Nelson Biagio Jr 