Overall Planning Method

CORE DEFINITION

The overall planning method, popularized in China by the mathematician Hua Luogeng, applies network analysis to the coordination of multiple tasks. It lists the operations and their dependencies, draws them as a network, identifies the critical path whose length determines the total duration, and uses the slack on non-critical paths to reallocate resources. The core proposition is that total project duration is set by the longest dependent chain rather than by the sum of all work, so shortening a non-critical task cannot shorten the project while shortening a critical one can. The key qualification is that the analysis is only as good as the dependency map, since one missed dependency invalidates the schedule.