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Samer -

You must be planning on a slow weekend.

- Lawrence

haha :)

I am trying to find out all i can about CPM and what is the current status. It led me to this article.

In the sea of information, i was glad to read that 50 years ago, they had clear thoughts which they generated based on mathematics establised 155 years ago. These are the building blocks to what we have today. Somewhere along the line, users forgot the essense and started battling with computer outputs!

Have a nice weekend.

With kind regards,

Samer

Samer,

The Critical Path Method will always follows the old school: Float = zero.

With the advent of computers and project management software, it cause lots of confusion. It may take a new generation to understand this new wave: multiple critical paths, near critical paths, etc.

And the project management suffers because they really dont know now how to grapple which critical paths to give priority in resource allocation.

There is where experience comes into play. The textbooks will remain theory. But the real macoy, the real decision that will make a lot of difference in project management is experience. I’m not promoting 20++ years of wrong experience (from 20 years as salesman to 1 year as project control manager).

Thank you,
Scarlett

Dear Scarllet,

I tend to agree with you. The CPM definition did not change since the past 50 years. The issue here is that the CPM is approved in Court. You have complex programs modeling complex projects.

You will need a great expert in scheduling working on your project in order to add contributions parrallel to the experienced person on medium projects. And on big projects, when the things really gets complicated, you need to be software dependent with extensive Data Entry and Reports analysis and verification.

With kind regards,

Samer

Thanks Samer,

I love this phrase:"You will need a great expert in scheduling working on your project in order to add contributions parrallel to the experienced person on medium projects. And on big projects, when the things really gets complicated, you need to be software dependent with extensive Data Entry and Reports analysis and verification."

Now, at least, I know how to price my expertise: Great Expert in Scheduling.

And since most of the projects failed, is failing, and will be failed (failure of the so called project managers) I will start marketing myself in the field of forensic scheduling analyst pattern after the AACEI standard. I do not believe in the SCL standard, it is so simplistic and maybe it willl not justified my proposed extravagant and frivolous fee.

Thank you,
Scarlett

Hi Scarlet

Yes - go for it - I became a Delay Analyst when I had the cards printed and put my rates up.

But that was back in the days when no one knew how to do it and there was no AACEI or SCL.

I was using Time Impact Analysis before the method had a name - indeed I thought I had invented it.

Other practitioners were still faffing about with Time Slice and creating great confusion.

Nowadays though you do need a track record of success to keep getting work - there are any amount of people who have read a few books and think they can convince a tribunal to allow an EoT.

The fact that I am not a planner helps a great deal.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Dear Mike,

You were able to identify the building blocks and build comprehensible arguments with the software. I think that you succeeded because you persisted in your desire to reach the core of Scheduling and you went up and down the process of preparing Schedules until you got it right each time.

It take a lot more than what the rest usually do.

With kind regards,

Samer