Richard de Neufville's TPP SM Thesis Manual - Title Page - MIT

your effort, you can then determine first whether the project is feasible as definedin the time allotted. If this work is not feasible, the critical path indicates whichactivities have to be redefined or hurried up so as to shorten the path. Thecritical path also indicates when each activity in the path must be completed, sothat the subsequent activities can be completed in the time remaining. Thisinformation helps you adjust your effort if you start falling behind.The procedure is basically simple. You first have to determine the organizationof the overall effort, specifically how it is composed of individual activities. Thisinvolves essentially three steps. You must, as illustrated in Exhibit 3.3:1. Identify the principal activities that must be done to complete the total job.For a thesis, these would be: “identify topic,” “get approval of advisor,”“obtain data,” “analyze data,” etc. These constitute the “activity list.2. ”Estimate the time required to complete each activity.3. Determine which activities must precede which others (for example, “obtaindata” must come before “analyze data,” etc.). This information is the“predecessor list.”4. The computer organizes the activities into their logical sequence on adiagram, drawing arrows between activities which must precede each other.5. Calculates the time along the several paths formed by these arrows. Thelongest is the critical path.If the time implied by the critical path is excessive, you will have to change yourschedule if you wish to complete in time. You can do this by reducing the scopeof some activities (if not eliminating them completely) so that they will take lesstime.A major usefulness of CPM lies in its ability to show a person which activitiesrequire most attention, and thus to understand where to put priorities to completea job (the thesis) on timeThesis Definition and Preparation -- Richard de Neufville 21