Network Diagram

Once you have your list of low-level Work Packages, they should be sequenced in a Network Diagram and point estimates.

Building the Network Diagram your team is one of the main reasons for the success of the project.

Note that only the lowest level to post-its (Work Packages) and then fix them again in a timeline from start to finish.

We are looking for dependencies:

- What work must be done before I start another work package? - What kind of work can be done in parallel (simultaneously)?

We will also write the name of the person responsible for each of our work packages.

1.  Duration vs. effort

Remember that time is not the same Effort. Network Diagram, enter TIME. This is the time taken by a task to complete, in an ideal situation.

The creation of the Network Diagram is an iterative process. When the length of time the project will take to see in an ideal world, you are going to take into account the reality:

• The people

• Weekends

• Holidays

• Multi-tasking etc

We can use various tools to visualize our project information. Some Project Managers using Microsoft Project or other scheduling tools (Primavera, etc.). Others use a simple Excel sheet.

It is important to define clearly the work of the project, and to show a time line related to each other, to see whether the project is realistic.

A Gantt chart is very useful as a communication tool, and if you have a vertical line with today's date, you can see what's been achieved and what still needs to be achieved.

We prefer to show the milestones in Gantt charts.

2 .  Network Diagram Analysis

Once we have created the Network Diagram, we begin to use it to specify two critical success factors:

Critical Path - the path through the network where the activities NO FLOAT. If one of these activities is even a day late, will slow down the whole project. These are critical tasks.

Float - if the task cannot be more flexibility in the critical path starts to have. There is room to maneuver.

Forward Pass

Remember to start the day "0".

You then add the time to take on the task, giving you the Early Finish date of the task. You move as the next task, and repeat.

If you go two tasks in a task, the higher of the two numbers, please.

Once you have completed your Forward Pass, you can see how long the project in the best of all worlds.

We do not take into account the resources that we have, weekends, holidays, etc.

We are now ready to calculate our Backward Pass.

Backward Pass

The backward pass starts from the back and pull out the expensive task.

If you go to work two to one (for example, C and D go to B), choose the lowest number.

When you have completed your Backward Pass, you will be able to find your critical activities, and by stringing them together, you will find your Critical Path (or path).

One way to check that you did Backward Pass is correct to ensure that the first task (s) Start Early and late start as well as the "0".

The activities that are not on the critical path is a certain amount of float.

Float is calculated by the number top left of the left number for the task (for example C5, 11-7 = 4. Task C has four-day float).