Scheduling projects: How to determine the critical

path using activity slack calculations?

Scheduling a project without resources boils down to a sequencing problem where activities are iteratively
scheduled while respecting the precedence relations between them. It results in the detection of the
critical path which refers to a sub-part of the project network containing the activities that are critical to the
project objective. In this article, the scheduling objective is assumed to be the minimization of the total
project duration. Figure 1 displays a project network with 6 activities (A to F) and an activity duration
estimate displayed above each node. This example will be used throughout this article to calculate the
critical path.

Figure 1. An example project network

The determination of the critical path of a project requires three steps which are summarized along the
following lines and discussed in the remainder of this article.:

Construct an earliest start schedule (ESS)

Construct a latest start schedule (LSS)
Calculate the activity slack

Earliest start schedule (ESS)

The earliest start of each activity can be calculated using forward calculations in the project network and
is equal to the maximum of the earliest finishing times of all its predecessor activities. The earliest finish of
an activity is defined as its earliest start time increased with its duration estimate. Figure 2 displays the
ESS for the example project of figure 1, starting from the first activity A and working forwards to the last
activity F, resulting in a total project duration of 15 time units.

Figure 2. An earliest start schedule for the example project

Latest start schedule (LSS)
The latest finish of each activity can be calculated in an analogous way, using backward calculations,
starting from the project deadline at the last activity of the project found by the ESS (which is equal to 15).
It is equal to or or less than the latest start of all its successor activities. The latest start of an activity is
defined as its latest finish time decreased by its duration estimate. Figure 3 displays the LSS, starting
from the last activity F and working backwards to the first activity A, resulting in a total project duration of
15 time units.

Figure 3: A latest start schedule for the example project

Activity slack
The amount of slack (or float) associated with each activity is used to denote the free time of each activity
within the ESS and LSS. It denotes the amount of time each activity can be delayed without violating the
entire project duration. The slack of an activity can be calculated as the difference between its latest start
and earliest start time, or alternatively, as the difference between its latest and earliest finishing time.

Activities with zero slack cannot be delayed without affecting the entire project duration and are called
critical activities. The critical path consists of a path of critical activities and is given by activities A, B, E
and F.

Activities that lie on the critical path cannot be delayed without delaying the entire project duration. Since
time is an important objective in scheduling, the critical path is where the project manager has to focus
on. It helps the manager to calculate the minimum length of time in which the project can be completed,
and which activities should be prioritized to complete by that project deadline. In order to finish a project
on time, the critical path calculations help the project manager to focus on the essential activities to which
attention and resources should be devoted. It provides an effective basis for the scheduling and
monitoring of project progress.