PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

• You are familiar with the term Project and Project Management
• Let’s do a quick recap
• a specific and time limited activity with a starting and ending date,clear
goals,defined responsibilities and a budget is known as—————-
• using modern management techniques to carry out and complete a project
from start to finish in order to achieve pre set targets of quality ,time and cost
is called ………………..
TODAY WE MOVE ON TO THE NEXT TOPIC THAT IS
PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL KNOWN AS CPA OR
CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS
 CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS ( CPA)
ALSO KNOWN AS NETWORK ANALYSIS

• Critical path analysis ("CPA") is a widely-used

project management tool that uses network
analysis to help project managers to handle
complex and time-sensitive operations.
WHY DO WE NEED CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS

• Many large business work on complex projects,which involve high investments and significant risks
• As the complexity and risk increases it becomes more necessary to identify the relationship between
the activities involved and to work out the most efficient way of completing the project
 The essential technique for using CPA
is to construct a model of the project
that includes the following:
• A list of all activities required to
complete the project
• The time (duration) that each
activity will take to
completion
• The dependencies between the
activities
Using this information, CPA
calculates:
• The longest path of planned activities to the end
of the project
• The earliest and latest that each activity can start
and finish without making the project longer.
• Which actives are “ critical” ( ie on the longest
path) and which have “ float” ( ie can be
delayed without making the project
longer)
LET’S RECAP

• 1. What is CPA.?
• 2.Why is CPA important for project management?
• 3.List the three essential elements of. CPA model.
TERMS USED IN CPA

• Net work diagram: shows logical sequence of

activities and logical dependencies between them!
• Critical path: the sequence of activities that must EST
be completed on time for the whole project to be
completed in shortest time. Node
• Node: diagrammatic representation of the
beginning and ends of the activity. LFT
• EST: earliest start time ( found by looking at earlier
finishing time of preceding activities)
• LFT: latest finish time ( found by working
backwards in time for subsequent activities)
 FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF A CPA DIAGRAM
• EST —calculate first and always work from Left
1 to Right

• EST—where two or more activities meet,

2
• EST is always the highest calculated figure.

• LFT—calculate after EST and always work from

3 Right to Left

• LFT——where two or more activities meet, LFT is always

4 the Lowest calculated figure
In project management, what does the critical path analysis determine?
a.All the tasks that are critical to success, and need to be delivered
b.The earliest possible date that a project can be completed
c.The path that has to be followed in order to complete all the dependencies
d.The last date that the last task can be started on

2.What is the key element that a network activity diagram conveys in relation to
a project?
a.The dependencies that exist between all the project task
b.The resource network required for all of the project deliverables
c.It highlights the tasks that have the riskiest estimates of duration
d.It shows the start dates for all of the items in the WBS
HOME WORK

• Q1.Write the meaning of CPA.

• Q2.What three pieces of information do the nodes on a network diagram display.
• Q3.