Page 330 - (DK) The Business Book

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A PROJECT WITHOUT A

CRITICAL PATH IS LIKE A

SHIP WITHOUT A RUDDER

CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS

IN CONTEXT
In a good strategy plan, all the activities that must be completed
FOCUS in order to finish a project are identified.
Planning procedures

KEY DATES
1814 Napoleon’s invasion of
Russia fails because the These activities are ordered in a logical sequence.
Grande Armée is not equipped
with the type of clothing
needed to survive the winter.
1910 US mechanical engineer When possible, activities are planned to run
simultaneously to save time.
Henry Gantt invents the Gantt
chart, which shows start and
finish dates for all activities
that need to be completed in
order to finish a project. Critical activities that, if delayed, will stop the project from
being completed on time are highlighted.
1959 Morgan Walker and
James Kelley publish their
groundbreaking paper
“Critical Path Planning
and Scheduling.” A project without a critical path is like
1997 In his book Golden a ship without a rudder.
Chain, Israeli physicist Eliyahu
Goldratt advises managers to
plan for uncertainties by
o minimize the amount of Morgan Walker and James Kelley,
creating “resource buffers,”
time needed to complete a and was first used in 1957 by the
which can be deployed to solve
T complex project, managers chemical manufacturer, DuPont, to
problems when they arise.
frequently use a process known as schedule a program of factory
critical path analysis (CPA). CPA closures in the most cost-effective
was developed by mathematicians way. By following Walker’s and