Critical Path Analysis

Level 3 critical path analysis (AS91576) is about planning a project made of many linked activities. You start from a precedence (dependency) table that says which activities must finish before others can start, turn it into an activity network, and then run two sweeps through the network — a forward pass for the earliest each activity can start and finish, and a backward pass for the latest it can start and finish without delaying the whole project. From those you find the float of each activity, the critical path (the chain of activities with no float), and the minimum project completion time. You then use the analysis to solve problems — deciding where to add resources, or crashing the project to finish sooner.