This manual is for PM-FPX4030 Assessment 1, start to submission. This is the deliverable with a right answer, which changes how you write it. The assessment usually asks you to build a network from an activity list, run the dates forward and backward, report float, name the critical path, and then price a compression the sponsor has asked for. Your scoring guide decides whether that arrives as a schedule with commentary, a network analysis with a crash table, or a memo recommending one option over another. Below is how our team builds one, the structure that falls out of it, and an annotated sample excerpt. Prefer to hand it off? A premium original sample comes back in 24 to 48 hours with every date recomputed from your inputs by a second reader, revised free until the criteria clear. Your courseroom may print this as PM FPX 4030 Assessment 1 or PM4030 Assessment 1; it is the same deliverable, and PM-FPX4030 Assessment 1 is what this manual walks through.
One honesty note before the manual: Capella revises courses and scoring guides over time, so always write to the exact scoring guide attached to your assessment in the courseroom. The course identity above is verified on capella.edu; the method and structure below are our tutors' approach to it, not Capella's official rubric text.
How PM-FPX4030 Assessment 1 is scored
Criteria are graded one at a time, and where a criterion has a correct answer the descriptors stop being about tone:
| Level | What it means on a network and compression analysis |
|---|---|
| Distinguished | Both passes are shown, float is quoted per activity and separated into total and free where it differs, compression is priced per unit of time, and the new critical path is identified after every cut. |
| Proficient | The network is right, both passes have been run, and the critical path is correct. The float sits in a table and the paper does nothing with it. |
| Basic | A list of activities with dates beside them and a critical path asserted rather than derived, usually the longest-looking chain rather than the longest one. |
| Non-performance | A required calculation is missing. Most often the backward pass was never run, and without late dates there is no float and half the criteria have nothing to grade. |
One distinction earns two sentences and moves a criterion. Total float is slack against the project finish and free float is slack before the next activity is disturbed, and an activity can carry the first without carrying any of the second, which is exactly the kind of detail the top column is written for.
The PM-FPX4030 Assessment 1 method, step by step
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Declare the units and the calendar once
Say whether durations are working days or calendar days and whether the week is five days or seven, then hold to it. Arithmetic checks fail more often from two sections counting differently than from a genuine mistake in addition.
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Run the forward pass and print the finishes
Start every activity as early as its predecessors allow, carry the finishes through the network, and take the largest incoming finish wherever two chains merge. The last finish is the project duration, and that figure is the one a criterion asking where the date came from is waiting for.
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Run the backward pass before you write any prose
Start at the project finish and work back, taking the smallest late start wherever an activity feeds two successors. Without late dates there is no float, and a schedule with no float figures cannot answer the criteria that pay best in this course.
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Quote both kinds of float per activity
Total float is the late start minus the early start. Free float is how much an activity can slip before the earliest successor moves. Where the two differ, say so, because an activity with four days of total float and none of its own free float will drag a neighbour the moment it moves.
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Crash the cheapest critical activity, then recompute
Compression only works on the critical path, so list the candidates with a cost per day and buy the cheapest first. Then run the network again, because shortening one chain usually promotes another and the second day of saving is bought on two paths at once.
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Recompute from the inputs, then submit
Set the draft aside, take the durations and predecessors on their own and work both passes again without looking at your answer. Anything that disagrees gets settled by you rather than by an evaluator. Then match each figure in the prose to its table, self-score, and leave room for a second attempt.
A structure that maps to the criteria
Ranges our tutors use for a network deliverable with a compression section; where your guide asks for a recommendation to a sponsor the interpretation grows and the grids stay the same size.
| Section | What it must do | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Basis and units | The time unit, the calendar convention, the resource assumptions and where the durations came from. | ~150 words |
| Activity table and logic | Every activity with its duration and true predecessors, drawn from the work packages rather than typed in order. | ~200 words |
| Forward and backward passes | Early start, early finish, late start and late finish for every activity, shown as a grid. | ~300 words |
| Float and the critical path | Total float and free float per activity, the critical chain named, and the interpretation written underneath. | ~250 words |
| Compression analysis | Crash cost per unit of time, the cut made, the recomputed network, and the path that became critical. | ~300 words |
| Control and references | The measurement cadence, the threshold that triggers escalation, current APA in both directions. | ~150 words |
Annotated sample excerpt
A worked network extract from an original model our team wrote, printed as a schedule section should read: inputs, then passes, then meaning.
Working days throughout: site preparation (A) 6 days starts the project, filler delivery and set (B) 8 days follows A, utilities and drains (C) 5 days also follows A, seamer and conveyor fit (D) 7 days follows B, glycol and gas lines (E) 9 days follows C, and wet commissioning (F) 4 days needs both D and E.1 The forward pass finishes A at 6, B at 14, C at 11, D at 21, E at 20 and F at 25, so the installation runs 25 working days; the backward pass puts F at a late start of 21, D at 14, E at 12, C at 7 and A at 0, which makes A, B, D, F critical and leaves C and E with one day of total float each.2 C carries no free float at all, because E cannot start until C finishes, so a single day lost on the drains moves the gas lines immediately even though the reopening date holds.3
- 1Units declared in the first three words, then every duration and predecessor printed. A reader can rebuild the whole network from this sentence.
- 2Both passes reported as figures rather than described, with the critical chain named and float given as a number.
- 3The total against free float distinction applied to a specific activity. Two clauses, and the criterion that separates Proficient from Distinguished is answered.
The full premium sample for your exact assessment, written fresh to your scoring guide and issue, is free to request. Study it, revise it into your own voice, and submit work you understand.
The five mistakes that cost Distinguished
- A backward pass that was never run. Late dates are where float comes from, so skipping the second pass silently removes the answers to several criteria at once.
- The longest-looking chain called critical. Critical means the largest total, and a chain of six short activities regularly beats a chain of three long ones.
- Float reported as a single number. Total and free float answer different questions, and an activity with slack against the finish can still have none against its successor.
- Compression with no recomputation. Shortening the critical path usually creates a second one, and the next cut then has to be bought on both paths together.
- Crash costs quoted as a lump. A criterion asking you to analyze compression wants a cost per day, since that is the only figure that shows the price of speed rising.
Pre-submission checklist
- Units and calendar convention declared once and used everywhere
- Forward pass complete, with the largest incoming finish taken at every merge
- Backward pass complete, with the smallest late start taken at every branch
- Total float and free float quoted per activity, and the difference explained where it exists
- Compression costed per day, with the network recomputed and the new critical path named
- Every figure rebuilt from the inputs independently, self-scored, submitted early in the week
Network diagram or crash analysis due?
Send the activity table, the crash rates and the criteria. We run both passes, separate total from free float, price the cuts in order and return a premium original sample inside 24 to 48 hours with the arithmetic on the page.