Planning a project

1. Planning
 : about deciding what you are going to do how and when
 - How long they will take?: usually, we have to make and use estimates
 - Dependencies between tasks: which have to be finished before another can start
 - Control: If you have a plan, you can see if you are following it

2. Gantt charts
 : a visual way to present plans and timings for a project

http://www.gantt.com/

3. Critical Path Analysis (CPA)
 : divide project into tasks -> estimate how long each will take -> decide what inter-dependencies there are between the tasks
 - Dependencies normally mean some tasks can't be started until others are complete
 (+) Knowing the critical path tells you which tasks have to be kept on time if the project is to finish on time
 (+) Knowing all the numbers tells you when the various tasks of your project need to happen

 - Critical path: the longest of all the paths from the start to the finish
  => the one which determines the project duration

 - Earliest start / completion time
 - Latest start / completion time
 - Float / Slack time: only appears in tasks on non-critical paths

 - Add a dummy process: sometimes there can be ambiguity or dependencies creep in (accidentally)

https://www.mindtools.com/critpath.html

4. PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Techniques)
 : a refinement of classical CPA