StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>I'm not sure if it's the <em>best</em> definition, but it's certainly one of the most succinct:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>The sequence of dependent steps that determine the minimum time needed to carry out an operation</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>another, slightly longer one, and in the context of project management (similar to the Wikipedia article that you linked to):</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>The path through a series of activities, taking into account interdependencies, in which the late completion of activities will have an impact on the project end date or delay a key milestone (there may be more than one critical path)</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Your understanding is correct, and the first step to identifying the critical path through a given project, would be to firstly actually define all of the individual steps required to complete the project, then to examine each and every "step" to determine just how dependent/important that step is to both other steps in the project as well as the project overall.</p> <p>Let's say I want to paint a wall. The steps might be (this is an intentionally simplified example):</p> <ul> <li>Buy some paint</li> <li>Buy some paint brushes</li> <li>Paint the wall</li> </ul> <p>Well, given that the end result would be a nice, freshly painted wall, the first step here (Buy some paint) is absolutely critical to the whole thing. If I can't achieve that, everything else stops. Also, every step after that is entirely dependent upon step 1 having been completed previously. Therefore, in this (admittedly contrived) example, the first step in the critical path is buying some paint.</p> <p>Conversely, Step 2 is important for a good paint job but could potentially be omitted if I just throw the paint at the wall!</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload