Abstract
Scheduling a project without resources boils down to a sequencing problem where activities are iteratively scheduled while respecting the precedence relations between them. It results in the detection of the critical path, which refers to a sub-part of the project network containing the activities that are critical to the project objective. In this article, the scheduling objective is assumed to be the minimization of the total project duration. Figure 5.1 displays a project network with six activities (A–F) and an activity duration estimate displayed above each node.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “Scheduling projects: How to determine the critical path using activity slack calculations?” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 2.
This section is also available as an article entitled “The Critical Path Method (CPM): Incorporating activity time/cost trade-offs in a project schedule” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “Activity slack: Total, safety and free slack definitions” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “The critical path with nonzero time-lags: An anomaly or just a mistake?” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “The Project Scheduling Game (PSG): Time/cost trade-offs on a computer screen” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT): Incorporating activity time variability in a project schedule” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “A critical note on PERT: A manual simulation study” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “Optimizing regular scheduling objectives: Priority rule based scheduling” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 9.
This section is also available as an article entitled “Optimizing regular scheduling objectives: Priority rule calculations” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “Optimizing regular scheduling objectives: Schedule generation schemes” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This section is also available as an article entitled “What is my scheduling objective? Lower bounds on the total project duration” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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This example was taken from the book “Project Management with Dynamic Scheduling: Baseline Scheduling, Risk Analysis and Project Control” published by Springer.
- 13.
This section is also available as an article entitled “Heuristic project scheduling: Validating the quality of a project schedule” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 14.
This section is also available as an article entitled “Resource constrained project scheduling: What is my scheduling objective?” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 15.
This section is also available as an article entitled “Resource constrained project scheduling: Regular and nonregular scheduling objectives” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 16.
This section is also available as an article entitled “What is my scheduling objective? Minimizing the project lead time” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 17.
This section is also available as an article entitled “What is my scheduling objective? Maximizing the net present value” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 18.
This section is also available as an article entitled “What is my scheduling objective? Minimizing the resource idle time” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
- 19.
This section is also available as an article entitled “What is my scheduling objective? Leveling the use of resources” published online at PM Knowledge Center.
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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
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Vanhoucke, M. (2016). Scheduling Techniques. In: Integrated Project Management Sourcebook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27373-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27373-0_5
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