Robin Nicklas

In a prior article, simulation techniques were used to explore the distribution of non-delay resource-feasible schedules and to identify resource critical paths (RCP’s). Being able to identify RCP’s is useful since project schedule length in a resource-constrained schedule is driven by RCP’s and not the simple critical paths (CP’s) identified in its antecedent resource unconstrained schedule. As was seen in the article, the expected project duration of a resource constrained schedule and its unconstrained antecedent can be very different.

A task’s criticality and finish time correlation are indicators of how much influence that task will have on the overall schedule duration. Criticality measures the likelihood that a task will appear on a critical path. Finish time correlation measures the relation between a task’s finish time and the project schedule’s finish time. Just as the expected durations of the resource unconstrained and constrained project schedules can vary, criticality and finish time correlation will vary. Hence, it is important that a project manager be able to assess these differences between the resource unconstrained and constrained schedules. This article will illustrate these differences with an example.