View Critical Tasks

The critical tasks in a project schedule decide the completion of the project on time. These tasks must be commenced and completed on the planned dates without fail.

The critical path calculation helps identify the top priority tasks in a project schedule.  The path is the branch of the WBS tree, with the chain of interdependent tasks that takes the longest duration. All tasks in a critical path are critical tasks. If any task in the critical path is delayed, the whole project suffers a schedule slip. Other tasks in the WBS can have an allowance of a float or slack, as they do not affect the project's end date. In some cases, there may be more than one critical path in a project schedule.

Identifying and completing critical tasks on time is crucial to any construction project management. This allows the project managers to deploy appropriate resources like manpower and equipment, adjust dependencies, adjust start dates of dependent tasks, and more to ensure the on-time completion of critical tasks.

The critical path can change from time to time from one sequence of tasks to another for many reasons, for example, work progress, completion or delay in the previously identified critical tasks, schedule baseline changes and more. It is evident that the project manager should closely watch the critical path in the schedule.  

The Linarc scheduler features a powerful built-in critical path calculator that dynamically computes the critical paths and shows them on the scheduler interface. You can also manually initiate the calculation of the critical path whenever you make a change in the schedule, add new items, or mark the progress of tasks.

• View critical tasks in the grid view
• View critical tasks in Gantt view

View critical tasks in the grid view

• Navigate to the schedule interface of the project management console and ensure that you are in the grid view

The identified critical tasks are identified with the icon on their left.

• Click the icon on the top right to instantly re-calculate the critical path and view the critical task indicators.

View critical tasks in Gantt view

• Navigate to the schedule interface of the project management console
• Choose 'Gantt View' or 'Grid and Gantt' from the drop-down at the top left
• Alternatively, click 'Gantt' on the left-hand side menu 
• Click to view the critical tasks identified by the critical path.

The critical tasks are highlighted and shown with a red border. An example is shown below: