Staging a large happening means keeping all the different parts of the projects alive without letting them eat each other. As ringmaster, you need to herd the competing schedules through the center of a “critical path” — the specific series of events that forms the backbone upon which the other events hang. Get the critical path done and the project happens.
Project management software assists sorting out this fluid ecology of needs. A sophisticated package will handle the side currents of a large event’s sub-projects, and will calculate the metabolism of the parts — the man-hours needed or available, or the rate of other critical resources. The benefit of this kind of tool is felt most on on-going or repeating projects. It’s probably
