Project 2016 Intermediate

Project 2016

Lesson – Working with the Critical Path

Use several methods to shorten the critical path, including decreasing task durations, adding lead time or resources, scheduling overtime, or increasing resource work hours. When you shorten the critical path, be aware that the cost of the project usually increases and may cause an overallocation of some resources.

Each option for shortening the critical path has its own disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it may be unrealistic to decrease the duration of a critical task because it cannot be completed in a shorter timeframe. Another options is adding lead time between critical tasks, which does not increase costs, but could overallocate resources. If a task is effort-driven, add resources to shorten the task duration; however, you may not be able to find available resources and it can increase costs. Scheduling overtime can keep effort-driven tasks on track but increases costs. If you increase the working hours for the resource, the critical tasks finish sooner; however, this also increases costs. All of these options are available to you to keep your project on schedule, but you need to determine which options are the most effective and appropriate for your particular situation.

A SSIGNING O VERTIME TO A T ASK

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Discussion

Assigning overtime to resources is one way to shorten the duration of a task because the same amount of work can be completed in a shorter amount of time. Assign overtime to tasks before you begin a project to eliminate possible overallocations. You may also need to assign overtime as your plan progresses if it is not going according to schedule. Assign overtime work in the Task Form view with the Resource Work format applied. When you assign overtime, you enter the overtime hours in the Ovt. Work field. You do not change the value in the Work column since the total amount of work for the task is the same. By adding overtime, you are telling Microsoft Project that some of the work will be performed outside of the normal working hours on the calendar. Microsoft Project subtracts the overtime work from the total work and shortens the duration of the task to reflect the amount of work to be completed during regular working hours.

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