Microsoft Project

Hi Garry

Thank you for your question.

The critical path in MS Project shows the tasks that dictate your project's end date and have no slack or float around them. In other words a change to the duration of a critical task will directly impact on when your project will finish.

You might use the critical path as a way of identifying potential risk in your plan. For example by identifying the critical tasks you can check they have the most experienced resources, have been correctly estimated and are clearly defined. If anything goes wrong with these tasks your end date will very likely be delayed.

I hope this helps - do let us know if you have any further questions.

Kind regards,
Andrew