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In a large P6 network it is rarely obvious why a milestone lands on the date it does. The path analyser answers that by tracing the chain of driving logic between any two activities, so you can see exactly which activities carry the delay, not just the single longest (critical) path.
Understanding paths is the heart of delay analysis, tender interrogation and progress reporting. A schedule where the critical path jumps around, or where open ends hide the true driver, cannot be trusted to forecast a completion date. Finding and fixing those links first is what makes the rest of the analysis meaningful.
An activity with no successor path to the project’s completion milestone — an “open end”. Because nothing downstream depends on it, its float cannot propagate correctly, which distorts the critical path. Closing open ends is one of the first fixes most schedule-quality checks call for.
The critical path is the single longest chain to completion. A driving path is whatever chain of logic actually controls a chosen activity or milestone, which may be near-critical rather than critical. Tracing it tells you what to attack to protect a specific date.