Last week, I taught a Primavera P6 training course to some great folks in frosty Fort McMurray.
As often happens, an interesting question came up about Critical Path. And this is not the first time this question has been put to me. But this time, I thought I would write about it.
“How do I put an activity on my project’s Critical Path in Primavera P6?”
So here’s the situation. A project schedule has been built and scheduled in Primavera P6. But for some reason, the planner is unsatisfied that Activity Z is not on the Critical Path. So, dear expert, how can I put it on the Critical Path?
WHY should an Activity be on the Critical Path?
To really answer the question of “How” to alter a project’s Critical Path, we need to first ask “Why”? What is the end-goal?
Here are a few common responses I hear from planners:
1) The activity is “Critical” to success of the project – it should be on the project’s Critical Path.
As Murray Woolf points out in his though-provoking article “When is the Critical Path Not the Most Critical Path”, there are 22 distinct definitions for the term “Critical Path” according to google results.
Which means that your definition of Critical Path may not be the same one used by your client or even your boss. Trouble!
Sometimes we want to highlight an activity for it’s importance to the successful completion of a milestone or the project itself. However, adjusting a project’s logic just to ensure that an activity shows as red on the Gantt chart is not the right approach.
Project logic is meant to plan the order of execution of activities. The order is declared in the planning process.
We should not alter a project’s Critical Path just to highlight activities as “important”. Use Activity Codes or UDFs to define and track the “important” activities.
If you want to go deeper on this matter, then read Murray’s article. In it, he suggests a paradigm shift in how we define the Criticality of an Activity and what project activities are most “Critical”.
2) I think/suspect Activity Z should be on the project’s critical path.
Review your project’s existing logic, and assess whether that is true or not. Does Activity Z fit into the proper sequence of activities on the project’s Critical Path?
If the activity was incorrectly linked, or circumstances have changed the order of execution, then adjust Activity Z’s logic accordingly to put it on the Critical Path.
ALWAYS make a backup before you alter your project’s logic. But also think about the impacts of these kinds of changes.
What are the Impacts of adding an Activity to the Critical Path?
Change logic can alter the Critical Path downstream, so compare your project’s old Critical Path to the new one.
Document all changes in a Notebook Topic or somewhere similar.
Ask any of the Forensic Scheduling experts on LinkedIn and they’ll tell you that adjusting the project’s logic during the execution of a project without justification and agreement from your client can lead to a lawsuit. So better play it safe and do the right thing.
What do you think?
What are your thoughts or questions about Critical Path changes? Drop us a comment below.
Here is another distinct (which is 23) definition for the term “Critical Path”, that manager or stakeholders do/does not know meaning of CP and they Insist to add task/s in CP which is not critical at all.
Happens a lot, I know!
Your Comments
Hi Michael,
Thank you for your good lessons.
I would like to know following in primavera
In the P6 schedule by customizing the column we can view the budged labor units for all the activities. Now I want to revise the schedule with new budgeted labor units .Each WBS Higher level I have new weighting with respect to budgeted labor units.I want to spread these units to down line to each activity wise.
How can I quickly edit the revised budgeted labor units for a 1000 line schedule.Is it possible export to excel and revise? or some other way ?.Expecting your guidance please.
Anil, I would export to Excel, revise and re-import. Check out our excel tutorials for help.
Could you forward your tutorials expecially about labour units and how to update existing activities that have resource labour units already assigned.
Sir,
My schedule has around 800 activities with resources and cost assigned to them. However when we export the file in .xer format,the cost gets reduced and some activities cost get removed with their budgeted units becoming zero.
Can u please help me solve this issue by your valuable guidance.
Priyansu – I can help. But do me a favour and post your questions on a relevant article – this question has nothing to do with the article above which is about forcing activities to the critical path.
The costs may end up different as associated resources and their hourly rates are not being updated in the destination database during the import. There are a few solutions, but try this first:
1) Make a copy of the original project. In this copy, we’re going to decouple the costs from the resource’s hourly rate.
2) On the Resource tab of each activity, add the column “Calculate Costs from Units”. Uncheck this option. Verify that the costs don’t change after you uncheck it.
3) Do this for every activity. You may have to do a Global Change.
4) Export this project to xer and verify the costs haven’t changed after import.
Hi Sir,
I have a similar type of question from you like priyanus asked from you but I have tried to find out the right forum for my question but I did not find anything.
allow me to ask the question from you or tell me the right forum for my question (project copy past issue regarding cost) in p6.
your helpfull reply is required
Regards,
Abubakar
Did you try this? There are a few solutions, but try this first:
1) Make a copy of the original project. In this copy, we’re going to decouple the costs from the resource’s hourly rate.
2) On the Resource tab of each activity, add the column “Calculate Costs from Units”. Uncheck this option. Verify that the costs don’t change after you uncheck it.
3) Do this for every activity. You may have to do a Global Change.
4) Export this project to xer and verify the costs haven’t changed after import.
Thank you very much for your reply, it’s appreciated, sir ……
My question was ….
1).I cost loaded my project when ever I tried to copy my project from one WBS head & paste it in the other WBS head. My total budgeted cost going to change either increase or decrease….
I put my cost against each activity in budgeted cost column in resource tab….
please help me out why it’s happening please sort out my query…
2). I asked you before please advise me the right forum for ( the general type of question) regarding primavera tool.
Your helpful answer is required
Regards
Abubakar
Abubakar, 1) something has changed when you copied your activites. Perhaps the calendar is different and there is more working days, or the resource’s Budgeted Units Per Time changed, or the activities Durations changed. So something is affecting the cost. I would verify dates, durations, calendars, resource settings between the original and the copied activities.
2) You can always ask us general questions on our Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/PlanAcademy. Alternatively, there are many LinkedIn Groups that are a great resource. Read this post: 15 LinkedIn Groups Every Project Controller Should Join
How can I force an activity onto my project’s Critical Path?
You can’t and you shouldn’t. That’s why I wrote this article.