A message from your Community Leaders:

Welcome to the first edition of the Project Management Community Newsletter. With this newsletter
we hope to provide simple, practical project management methodology and Microsoft Project tips and
techniques to our community. In the upcoming issues, topics for both the beginning and advanced
project manager will be highlighted.

If you have any topic suggestions and/or would like to be a contributor to this newsletter, please
contact your editor: Xiaoli Ma at XMa2@slb.com

Sincerely,

Andy Peters & Leslie Warren

PM Community Co-Leaders

Practical PM Tips: Critical Path

Critical Path is the longest sequence of tasks that must be completed on time for the project to
complete on its due date. If any task on the critical path is delayed, it will delay the project. By
definition, tasks along the critical path are not flexible and have no “float” or “slack”.

Why is identifying the critical path important? It is important to know which tasks need to be
monitored closely to prevent a delay in the project. Tasks not on the critical path can delay without
affecting the project schedule, but a 1 day delay of a critical path task will cause the same delay of 1
day on completion of the project.

However, it is important to remember that during the course of the project, the critical path may
change when sequencing of work and/or duration changes occur during schedule adjustments,
resource allocations, or when tasks are completed ahead or behind schedule. Therefore it is important
to regularly monitor and re-calculate the critical path.

There are sophisticated methods for analyzing the critical path, however for most of us, using the
critical path display in Microsoft project is a good first step!

SLB appreciates the contributions for this issue: Published 06/22/2011

Leslie Warren Feedback to: Xiaoli Ma at XMa2@slb.com
 Microsoft Project Tips: How to display Critical Path

To display the critical path on the Gantt Chart, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are first in the Gantt Chart view by selecting View and then Gantt Chart.

2. Click on Format, locate and click the Gantt Chart Wizard button. Alternatively, you can choose
Format and then Gantt Chart Wizard from the Menu bar.

3. On the Welcome To The Gantt Chart Wizard page, click Next to begin.
4. On the second page of the wizard, select Critical Path and click Next.
5. On the third page of the wizard, select Resources And Dates.
6. On the next wizard page, select Yes to show link lines between dependent tasks. Click Next.
7. Click Format It and then Exit Wizard. Critical path tasks will be displayed in red and non-critical
path tasks will be blue.

For a quick online tutorial – check out this YouTube Video by TacticalProjectManagement.com at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyGb-cf_gQg

SLB appreciates the contributions for this issue: Published 06/22/2011

Leslie Warren Feedback to: Xiaoli Ma at XMa2@slb.com