CRM solutions can either be hosted or licensed, meaning that a company can buy the license for a CRM solution and run it themselves, or they can lease a CRM solution, and have that company be responsible for monthly maintenance and training for employees.

CRM benefits companies of varying sizes: enterprise through home-based businesses

* Large enterprise businesses — These global companies require CRM systems that integrate customer service management, sales force management, and IT management into the CRM package. For instance, customer service CRM helps these large companies keep track of extensive customer databases so that customer service support personnel can easily locate accounts, track and analyze orders, as well as track helpdesk tickets so that the questions get answered. Examples of CRM vendors that serve enterprise companies include Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Usually large companies purchase a license from these vendors so that they can customize their CRM solution into their IT systems.

Many enterprises are realizing that CRM is an integral part of their business and that it is worth every investment penny, but executives must align their people and processes across their business to prevent CRM from becoming just a technology issue. Says Annie Bloin, VP of client service at RBC-Centura, “RBC recognized early on that the success of our CRM would mean the creation of new processes and the transformation of employee behavior. We've formed a cross-functional team to continually evaluate processes and make recommendations for improvements.”

* SBE (Small Business Enterprises) and SME (Small/Medium Enterprises) — Since serving existing customers is always more profitable than spending resources for new ones, CRM helps small and medium sized businesses track and manage opportunities like sales leads, phone calls, and report generation. CRM allows smaller companies to keep abreast of customer needs and trends, while looking like a large business that operates 24/7. The right CRM package can provide a self-help, automated program that answers customer questions outside of normal business hours.

Historically, small and medium businesses do a better job at servicing their customers than enterprise firms, so an efficient and capable CRM solution should make sense for them. Examples of CRM solutions for SBEs/SMEs include Salesforce.com (starting at $65 a user per month) and Goldmine 6.5 by FrontRange Solutions ($ 179.95 for the package). Both of these solutions are scalable which allow companies to add in areas where their business needs the extra support.

* SSB (Small Small Businesses) and SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) — It used to be that the smallest businesses used Microsoft Outlook for basic customer contact information, and users shared a centralized contact list. Today, however, many SSBs are learning the value of affordable web-based CRM solutions like FreeCRM.com and SalesProCRM, which increase the productivity of a small company's sales team, so that more revenue can be earned with fewer salespeople. Because of their small staff sizes and service-based businesses, SSBs/SOHOs need to maximize their time with a CRM solution that target customers and prospects most likely to buy their products and services. CRM software assists growing businesses by organizing customer data by initial lead, to the sale, plus any ongoing follow up service or support. The software also accesses activity reports, generates labels for mailings, and allows the user to easily update customer information.

CRM is a worthwhile investment

Using CRM is a smart solution for any sized business to stay competitive. Fortunately, there are as many CRM solutions as there are businesses that need them. Enterprises can more easily afford CRM than smaller businesses, which must resist the urge not to update their customer systems. For instance, many smaller business fight CRM because of lack of time, employees, lack of capital, and inadequate IT resources. However, if smaller businesses do their research, they will learn that a CRM software solution can give value back to their customers, can retain those customers, plus increase profits and customer satisfaction.

via What is CRM?  Business benefits of customer relationship management.

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. This CRM article is provided by Ellen Gifford, who specialises in helping organizations develop excellence in CRM, and this contribution is gratefully acknowledged.

What is Customer Relationship Management, or CRM? Customer Relationship Management concerns the relationship between the organization and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any organization be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. Customer Relationship Management is the same in principle for these two examples – it is the scope of CRM which can vary drastically.

CRM focuses on the relationship

Successful organizations use three steps to build customer relationships:

• determine mutually satisfying goals between organization and customers
• establish and maintain customer rapport
• produce positive feelings in the organization and the customers

CRM conditions

The organization and the customers both have sets of conditions to consider when building the relationship, such as wants and needs of both parties;

• organizations need to make a profit to survive and grow
• customers want good service, a quality product and an acceptable price

Good CRM can influence both sets of conditions.

why do organizations undertake CRM?

CRM is a new concept to many organizations. If it’s new to you, here’s why most forward-thinking organizations devote lot of energy and resources to the set up and management of a CRM capability.

how CRM impacts on the organization

CRM can have a major impact on an organization through:

• shifting the focus from product to customer
• streamlining the offer to what the customer requires, not want the organization can make
• highlighting competencies required for an effective CRM process

why does the organization need CRM?

The ultimate purpose of CRM, like any organizational initiative, is to increase profit. In the case of CRM this is achieved mainly by providing a better service to your customers than your competitors. CRM not only improves the service to customers though; a good CRM capability will also reduce costs, wastage, and complaints (although you may see some increase initially, simply because you hear about things that without CRM would have stayed hidden). Effective CRM also reduces staff stress, because attrition – a major cause of stress – reduces as services and relationships improve. CRM enables instant market research as well: opening the lines of communications with your customers gives you direct constant market reaction to your products, services and performance, far better than any market survey. Good CRM also helps you grow your business: customers stay with you longer; customer churn rates reduce; referrals to new customers increase from increasing numbers of satisfied customers; demand reduces on fire-fighting and trouble-shooting staff, and overall the organization’s service flows and teams work more efficiently and more happily.

features of good CRM

The old viewpoint in industry was: ‘Here’s what we can make – who wants to buy our product?’

The new viewpoint in industry is:

• ‘what exactly do our customers want and need?’ and
• ‘what do we need to do to be able to produce and deliver it to our customers?’

This is a significant change of paradigm and a quantum leap in terms of how we look at our business activity.

what do customers want?

Most obviously, and this is the extent of many suppliers’ perceptions, customers want cost-effective products or services that deliver required benefits to them. (Benefits are what the products or services do for the customers.) Note that any single product or service can deliver different benefits to different customers. It’s important to look at things from the customer’s perspective even at this level.

More significantly however, customers want to have their needs satisfied. Customers’ needs are distinctly different to and far broader than a product or service, and the features and benefits encompassed. Customers’ needs generally extend to issues far beyond the suppliers’ proposition, and will often include the buying-selling process (prior to providing anything), the way that communications are handled, and the nature of the customer-supplier relationship.

Modern CRM theory refers to the idea of ‘integrating the customer’. This new way of looking at the business involves integrating the customer (more precisely the customer’s relevant people and processes) into all aspects of the supplier’s business, and vice versa. This implies a relationship that is deeper and wider than the traditional ‘arms-length’ supplier-customer relationship.

The traditional approach to customer relationships was based on a simple transaction or trade, and little more. Perhaps there would be only a single point of contact between one person on each side. All communication and dealings would be between these two people, even if the customers’ organization contained many staff, departments, and functional requirements (distribution, sales, quality, finance, etc).

The modern approach to customer relationship management is based on satisfying all of the needs – people, systems, processes, etc – across the customer’s organization, such as might be affected and benefited by the particular supply.

generating a customer focused CRM solution

So what do we need to make this quantum leap of customer integration?

A new way of thinking:

• change in paradigm
• change in the messages sent and received
• change in the overall culture

And a new way of doing things:

• processes that are capable and effective
• structures and systems that support a business centred on its customers
• connectivity (end-to-end processes) both internally and externally (eg., with suppliers)

customers’ expectations

If an organization cannot at least meet its customers’ expectations it will struggle.

Ideally a business organization should exceed its customers’ expectations, thereby maximising the satisfaction of its customers, and also the credibility of its goods and services in the eyes of its customers.

Customers normally become delighted when a supplier under-promises and over-delivers. To over-promise and under-deliver is a recipe for customers to become very dissatisfied.

Rule No 1 – You cannot assume that you know what a customer’s expectations are … You must ask.

Rule No 2 – Customer expectations will constantly change so they must be determined on an on-going basis.

The expectations of different customers for the same product or service will vary according to:

• social and demographic factors
• economic situation
• educational standards
• competitor products
• experience

Therefore, given all these variable factors, it is no surprise that one size certainly does not fit all.

Ask your customers what is important to them. Find out why your customers do business with you. There are a wide variety of relationship drivers. For example:

• quality
• price
• product
• location
• customer service

When you ask you might discover some factors that you’d perhaps never even considered, for example:

• health and safety support
• systems compatibility
• contract structure
• distribution flexibility
• technical support
• troubleshooting and problem-solving, to name just a few

What service features will keep your customers loyal to you? Find out.

CRM as a process

CRM can be regarded as a process, which has:

• identifiable inputs
• identifiable components
• identifiable characteristics, which define CRM for your organization and customer base
• capacity for improvement and evolution over time

managing customers

Why manage customers? Customers are the usual source of income for an organization. (If not then they will certainly leverage your income, as in the case of readers of a free publication which is funded by advertising. As such there are two types of customers: the readers and the advertisers).

Customers are also an exceptional source of information – information which is vital to enable a business to succeed; ie., giving customers what they want.

Managing customers entails:

• knowing what customers want and need – which enables you to focus your production and service efforts
• knowing which products or customers have most growth potential – which enables you to focus on developing highest potential
• knowing which products or customers are most or least profitable – which enables you to focus on maximising profit
• knowing which customers will be advocates and supporters – which enables you to provide references, case studies, and to safely test new products and services

achieving good CRM

Achieving effective Customer Relationship Management requires many organizations to adopt a new perspective. Consider the following:

• traditional customer service is something you ‘do to’ the customer
• modern Customer Relationship Management is ‘done with’ the customer

The second statement is emphasises the big differences between conventional traditional customer service, and the modern progressive CRM approach.

Your relationships with customers should be ongoing, cooperative, and built for the long term.

Organizations who have many transitory relationships with customers consequently have to spend a lot of money on finding new customers.

The cost of keeping existing customers is a tiny fraction of the cost of acquiring new customers.

Pareto’s Law (‘The Pareto Principle’)

Pareto’s Law is commonly known as the 80:20 rule. Typically in any organization:

• 20% of customers account for 80% of your turnover
• 20% of customers account for 80% of your profits
• 20% of customers account for 80% of your service and supply problems

It is important to know is which customers fit into which category and then to manage them accordingly.

Highly satisfied customers who perceive a high value in your products and services commonly make excellent advocates for your organization – nurture these customers and give the special treatment.

Dissatisfied customers who perceive a low value in your products and services are potential saboteurs. These customers could have little or no loyalty and may actively ‘engage’ against your organization. Therefore you should seek to rebuild relationships and trust, and a new basis for a future relationship, or manage the separation with dignity, professionalism and integrity.

focus on building relationships

The essential CRM focus of any organization should be on developing core competencies, and an overall strategy of building customer relationships. In this way, all efforts in the organization can be aligned to:

• customers and the culture of exceeding of customer expectation
• understanding and managing the people impact on the culture of the organization
• customers being recognised and treated as partners
• the value of relationship-building being valued
• service being seen as a value-adding activity
• reward and recognition being based on customer focus ie., ‘going the extra mile’
• evidence of corporate support for service activity

characteristics of excellent CRM

The following characteristics are associated with delivery of excellent CRM:

• reliability
• responsiveness
• accessibility
• safety
• courtesy
• consideration
• communication
• recognising the customer
• competence

‘moments of truth’

‘Moments of truth’ are encounters with customers which cause them to form a view of the organization based on how they are engaged, particularly compared to their expectations.

Expectations can be met, exceeded or disappointed. Moments of truth can therefore be positive, in the case of meeting and exceeding expectations, or negative, in the case of disappointment. Monitoring the ‘moments of truth’ allows the company to focus on improving areas responsible for negative customer experiences.

Remedial action to prevent repetition is crucial. A single mistake is forgivable. A repeat rarely is.

If you put things right your customers will see that they are important to you. Put things right and you will be seen as a supplier who knows how to manage quality.

Organizations that fail to put right things that go wrong, might as well say to the customer, “You are not important to us”. Failing to put things right and to prevent reoccurrence says of the organization “We are not capable of managing quality service.”

Bear in mind also that research has proven time and again that when an an issue of poor service to a customer is satisfactorily resolved by a supplier, the customer increases their loyalty to the supplier to a higher level than existed prior to the problem.

An approach to managing ‘moments of truth’ involves ‘continuous improvement’. This entails processes that continually monitor, check and resolve negative moments of truth by ensuring alterations happen to the customer process, and integrating theses changes into ‘business as usual’. Here are the elements of such an approach:

• define the cycle of service
• identify negative moments of truth
• define the reasons (ie., root causes – not symptoms)
• develop solution/s
• test solution(s)/review/amend
• implement
• monitor impact on the cycle of service

This is similar to the EPACA model – the helix of continuous improvement.

Negative moments of truth carry a lot of weight with the customer and will adversely affect the relationship.

To maximise positive moments of truth – set standards in your processes.

Standards using SMART criteria Standards (which may also be objectives) can be established using the SMART framework.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed
• Realistic
• Time-bound

CRM and communications

Communication is central to any successful relationship. In terms of Customer Relationship Management, communication needs to be consistent and high quality; as determined by:

• on time
• focused
• relevant
• reliable
• coherent

Importantly also, for effective communications it’s the message and meaning that is received that counts, irrespective of what the communicator thinks they’ve said, or written. Communications must be judged most vitally by the reaction of the receiver. If the reaction is not good then the communication is poor.

The information contained in a CRM system allows communication to be directed at the correct audience, in the correct way. The communication system must also encourage and facilitate honest and actionable feedback.

Feedback from customers – especially complaints – are essential for good organizational performance and ongoing development. Most organizations avoid, discourage and hide from complaints. Don’t. Complaints are free guidance for improving your quality, and free opportunities to increase customer loyalty.

people and CRM

As with any other business process your people have a huge impact on the success of the CRM process.

Successful and effective Customer Relationship Management people tend to display the following key characteristics:

• positive attitude
• people orientation
• organizational skills
• analytical skills
• customer focus (natural empathy)
• understanding of the link between CRM and profitability

On the subject of empathy: Empathy is about understanding, not necessarily agreeing. Effective customer focus enables the organization and its staff to see both sides, and to work with the customer to arrive at a mutually satisfactory and sustainable solution. Agreement alone amounts to capitulation, which is neither practicable nor sustainable.

benefits of effective CRM

There are significant business benefits which accrue from an effective, integrated Customer Relationship Management approach. These include:

• reduced costs, because the right things are being done (ie., effective and efficient operation)
• increased customer satisfaction, because they are getting exactly what they want (ie., exceeding expectations)
• ensuring that the focus of the organization is external
• growth in numbers of customers
• maximisation of opportunities (eg., increased services, referrals, etc.)
• increased access to a source of market and competitor information
• highlighting poor operational processes
• long term profitability and sustainability

Forward thinking organizations understand the vital need to maintain a strategic focus on CRM and to resource and manage it appropriately.

This guide to CRM methodology and application is provided by Ellen Gifford, which is gratefully acknowledged. Aside from being a UK-based specialist in CRM with many years’ experience large and small organizations, Ellen is also a trainer in Neuro Linguistic-Programming (NLP); management development, and personal coaching. As an advocate of all aspects of interpersonal skills and their importance in modern organizations, Ellen started her own business, The Learning Path, in 1998, to concentrate on providing training in these areas, in which the complementary disciplines of NLP and CRM provide an innovative and effective approach to Customer Relationship Management and to achieving sustainable organizational performance improvement.

For further information about using Customer Relationship Management and NLP to improve organizational performance you can contact Ellen via:

email: ellenbb@thelearningpath.co.uk
phone: +44 (0) 1527 585310
website: www.theleaningpath.co.uk

CRM software solutions and ICT (information and communications technology)

Software and ICT play a significant part in enabling an effective CRM capability, especially in large organizations.

There are many and various systems available, and it is important to have a clear idea of your requirements during the software solution selection process, which for most organizations will also involve the selection of ICT service provider too, since any software solution, for all but very small companies, generally requires support for specifying, implementation, training and maintenance.

Siebel, Sage (who now provide the well-known Accpac and ACT! CRM solutions), and Front Range (whose product is Goldmine) are all significant and proven CRM software products companies. There are many others, and very many more ICT service providers through whom distribution and support is normally arranged.

As with any ICT project, ensure you work with reliable and knowledgeable advisors, with access to cost-effective proven solutions, who can help you to build and implement an effective CRM software and ICT capability.

via CRM, customer relationship management solutions, software, system management: a guide to CRM application strategy.

Get Comfortable with Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet software is the starting point for all financial projections. Microsoft Excel is the most common, and chances are you already have it on your computer; there are also special software packages you can buy to help with financial projections. Spreadsheets offer flexibility, allowing you to quickly change assumptions or weigh alternate scenarios. About.com’s Guide to Spreadsheets can help you get started.

Go Beyond the Income Statement

The income statement is a standard measuring tool used to convey your projected revenues and expenses. A good financial projection also will include a projected balance sheet, which shows the breakdown of assets, liabilities and owner’s equity. In addition, it will include a cash flow projection, which reveals the actual movement of cash through your company in a given period.

Your financial projections should include estimates of how much money you plan to borrow and interest repayments on those loans. Additionally, be sure to follow the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, which are set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the private-sector organization responsible for setting financial accounting and reporting standards in the U.S. If financial reporting is new territory for you, have an accountant review your projections.

Provide Short-Term and Medium-Term Projections

You should be able to offer investors:

* A short-term projection of the first year, broken down by month

* A three-year projection, broken down by year

* A five-year projection. Don’t include this one in the business plan, since the further into the future you project, the harder it is to predict; however, have it available in case an investor asks for it.

When projecting growth, consider the state of the market in which you are operating, as well as trends in raw material and labor costs, and whether you foresee needing additional funding in the future.

Account for Startup Fees

Fees related to licenses, permits and equipment should be included in the short-term projections. Also keep in mind the difference between fixed and variable costs; differentiate where appropriate. Variable costs usually will be included under the category of “cost of goods sold.”

Offer Two Scenarios ONLY

Investors will want to see a best-case and worst-case scenario, but don’t inundate your business plan with myriad “medium-case” scenarios. It will likely just cause confusion.

Make Your Assumptions Reasonable and Clear

As mentioned before, financial forecasting is as much art as it is science: You’ll have to assume certain things, such as your revenue growth, how your raw material and administrative costs will grow, and how effective you’ll be at collecting on accounts receivable. It’s best to be realistic in your projections as you try to recruit investors. If your industry is going through a contraction period and you’re projecting revenue growth of 20 percent a month, red flags will begin to pop up.

via Writing a Business Plan – Financial Projections.

After you have done your Work Breakdown Structure and inserted the tasks into MS Project 2007, you have done your resource-budget and allocation it is time for You to Baseline your project. You will most likely save the MS project-file a number of times before you have finalised the initial planning and the project is in such shape that you can and should baseline it. This is a natural process. When you do a baseline you save the following data about the project at that specific point in time;

Assignments: Start and Finish dates, work, timephased work, costs and timephased costs.

Tasks: Duration, Start and Finish dates, work, timephased work, cost and timephased cost.

Resources: Work, timephased work, cost, timephased cost, budget work, timephased budget work, budget cost and timephased budget cost.

In Microsoft Project 2007 you set the baseline by;

1. Create the project that you would like to baseline.

2. Choose Tools -> Tracking -> Set Baseline.

3. Open the Baseline listbox and choose the number of your baseline.

4. Verify by clicking ok.

via What is baseline and how to define a baseline in MS Project..

Most projects contain a large number of tasks. The critical path is the particular sequence of tasks that must be complete for the project to be considered complete. This path dictates the finish date on your project.

The critical path is not just a list of vital tasks. It is a specific sequence of tasks, each one depending on the last. Your project might have several sequences like this, even several critical sequences. The one that is projected to finish the latest dictates project completion and is therefore the critical path.

As the project progresses, different sequences might be named as critical. Consider a project with two vital task sequences which we’ll call A and B. At the beginning of the project, sequence A is projected to take six months and B is projected to take five months. Since A will take longer it is the critical path.

After two months, A is running well ahead of schedule and is now expected to take only three months more while B has suffered delays and has four months left. B is now the critical path.

What is a Critical Task?

The short definition of a critical task is any task that will affect the end date of the project if delayed. You learn several techniques for task definition in Microsoft Project training. Some of the characteristics will cause a task to be marked as critical.

Absence of slack is the most common definition. Slack is how long a task can be delayed and still be on schedule. A three-day task with a seven-day deadline has four days of slack. A task with no slack is critical.

You can change the slack threshold in order to give yourself warning that a project is about to run behind schedule. For example, if you increase the threshold from zero to two days than any task with two days or less of slack will be marked as critical, alerting you to a potential problem.

Tracking the Critical Path

Microsoft Project training shows several techniques to track the critical path. The Gantt chart will display critical tasks and links in red by default so you can easily pick them out.

You can display only critical tasks on the Gantt chart by selecting Critical in the view filter. You can group them by going to the Project menu, selecting Group By, then Critical. Display multiple critical paths using Tools/Options, clicking the Calculation tab, and selecting the “Calculate multiple critical paths” check box.

Microsoft Project training can also demonstrate methods to manage critical paths. Breaking a task into smaller tasks that can be worked on simultaneously, or modifying dependencies so that the critical path is more flexible are just two methods you might learn.

via The Critical Path in Microsoft Project.

1. Open your project schedule in Microsoft Project.
2. Go to View | Gantt Chart View.
3. Go to View | Table | Entry. (See Figure A)

Figure A

Sample project schedule

To start the Gantt Chart Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Go to Select Format | Gantt Chart Wizard. You can also right-click the Gantt Chart and select the Gantt Chart Wizard from the pop-up menu.
2. When the Gantt Chart Wizard starts, click Next.
3. Select the Critical Path radio button (Figure B) and click Next. Figure B

Gantt Chart Wizard dialog box

4. Choose the task information options and click Next. (I prefer to keep the default Resources and Dates options.)
5. Keep the default links between the dependent tasks option and click Next.
6. Click the Format It button and exit the wizard.

Figure C displays the formatted Gantt chart.

Figure C

Critical path Gantt Chart

With the formatted Gantt Chart, you can easily see the critical path and the project dependencies. If any of these tasks are delayed, then the project’s end date will be impacted. Task 4 is not on the critical path, so it has several days of float in the schedule before it impacts the project schedule.

If you want to get a list of just the critical path tasks (Figure D), you can use the Group By option in the Microsoft Project toolbar. I often use this view to determine which tasks and resources are on the critical path. This extra level of detail helps me understand what needs to be accomplished and who is responsible for the task.

Figure D

Critical path tasks

To view the critical path tasks, follow these steps:

1. Confirm the Standard toolbar is displayed. It should be there by default, but if it isn’t, you can go to View | Toolbars | Standard.
2. Click the Group By drop-down box (Figure E) and select Critical from the list of Values.

Figure E

Group By option

The critical and non-critical tasks will be conveniently grouped for further analysis and reporting (Figure E).

The Schedule table is useful when you want to understand the slack in the schedule. With the critical tasks grouped, you can quickly view the available slack in the non-critical tasks.

To view the slack in the project schedule, follow these steps:

1. Go to View | Table | Schedule.
2. The Schedule table will be grouped by Critical and Non-Critical tasks (Figure F).

Figure F

Schedule table

The Network Diagram is another view that is helpful in understanding the critical path. A Network Diagram is the classic Activity on Node schedule dependency diagram you may have seen in project management courses or in the Project Management Body of Knowledge.

To view the Network Diagram, go to View | Network Diagram. You can also click the Network Diagram in your View Bar, which is located on the left hand side of the screen. Figure G displays the Network Diagram.

Figure G

Network Diagram

The tasks highlighted in red display the critical path, while the blue tasks are not on the critical path.

Microsoft Project can also create the standard forward pass and backward pass views with early starts and late finish data that you likely calculated if you prepared for your PMP exam. I’ll cover this more advanced topic in a future tutorial.

If you’d like to see a video tutorial of these steps in action, please view my How to View the Critical Path in Microsoft Project video.

via View the critical path in Microsoft Project | IT Leadership | TechRepublic.com.

The short definition of a critical task is any task that will affect the end date of the project if delayed. You learn several techniques for task definition in Microsoft Project training. Some of the characteristics will cause a task to be marked as critical.

Absence of slack is the most common definition. Slack is how long a task can be delayed and still be on schedule. A three-day task with a seven-day deadline has four days of slack. A task with no slack is critical.

You can change the slack threshold in order to give yourself warning that a project is about to run behind schedule. For example, if you increase the threshold from zero to two days than any task with two days or less of slack will be marked as critical, alerting you to a potential problem.

Tracking the Critical Path

Microsoft Project training shows several techniques to track the critical path. The Gantt chart will display critical tasks and links in red by default so you can easily pick them out.

You can display only critical tasks on the Gantt chart by selecting Critical in the view filter. You can group them by going to the Project menu, selecting Group By, then Critical. Display multiple critical paths using Tools/Options, clicking the Calculation tab, and selecting the “Calculate multiple critical paths” check box.

Microsoft Project training can also demonstrate methods to manage critical paths. Breaking a task into smaller tasks that can be worked on simultaneously, or modifying dependencies so that the critical path is more flexible are just two methods you might learn.

via The Critical Path in Microsoft Project.