The Critical Path Method

Abstract

This chapter makes an effort to tighten the gap between the project scheduling literature and the needs of project managers and schedulers through the use of a practical computerized simulation game. Project managers are constantly confronted with the intricacy of scheduling a complex real-life problem in an efficient way when they often have little knowledge of the state-of-the-art in the algorithmic developments or inherent characteristics of the scheduling problem they solve. A game has been developed that serves as a training tool to help practitioners gain insight in project scheduling. The well-known critical path method (CPM) with activity time/cost trade-offs is introduced to the reader, and used as a project scheduling technique in the game.