Friday, November 15, 2013
Info You Can Use: Examining The Critical Path
Butts In the Seats: Yesterday, Seth Godin made a post that seemed aimed at a few of the companies and organizations I have volunteered or worked for/with throughout my life. He addressed the importance of understanding the critical path to achieving a goal. He defined critical path as “The longest string of dependent, non-compressible tasks.”
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4 comments:
This a great explanation of what a critical path is, and how it works within a professional company regarding tasks that need to be accomplished. I especially like what he says about the "waiting on someone else" option on his task list. I make to-do lists for everything, and since I never mark that distinction in any way I end up having tasks that I can't cross-off because I'm waiting on a fellow group member or a response from a teacher. It's a smart way to organize tasks without setting up a whole critical path chart.
I really like the quote that he gives about how other companies deal with critical path. I find far too often that companies get hung up on shiny exciting things and do not figure out how the goal will actually get accomplished. We want this amazing effect but do we have enough time to acquire it or the right kind of person to achieve it are all departments working collaboratively and saying what they actually need in order to complete something. Critical path is involved in every project that you do so instead of trying to work around departments or deadlines why don't companies just embrace what they have to work with and figure out new ways to make processes more effective by working more collaboratively.
What I find most useful about the concept of critical path is that it is extremely scalable. For example, there is a critical path to getting a show up and running. There is also a critical path for completing the scenery. Within that there is a critical path for building a single unit of scenery, and so on and so forth. While critical path is generally thought of as a management tool, it is equally as useful as a member lower down on the chain of command. I have noticed this during my crew hours this year, as I have been handed slightly more responsibility.
I think critical path is most challenging to manage from the role of a project manager. As someone whose responsible over seeing the critical path of a project it's hard to distinguish when your critical path is dependent on so many different critical paths to work in tandem. How do you avoid getting lost in the details of other paths while still focusing in the scope and path of the project as a whole? I like that the company color coordinated the choke points and who was involved, I think that is something we can do to not only to see who's important and when, but what parts of the project need the most attention and thought.
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