Software project planning is usually represented by a project activity network that is composed of stages of tasks to be done and precedence restrictions among them. The project network is very complex and its construction requires a vast amount of field knowledge and experience. So this study proposes a case-based reasoning approach that can generate the project network automatically based on the past cases and modification knowledge. For the case indexing, we have adopted 17 factors, each with a few alternative values. A special structure of this problem is that the modification effort can be identified by each factor independently. Thus it is manageable to identify 85 primitive modification actions(add and delete activities) and estimate its modification efforts in advance. A specific case requires a combination of primitive modifications. Based on the modification effort knowledge, we have adopted the Least Modification approach as a metric of similarity between a new project and past cases. Using the Least Modification approach and modification knowledge base, we can automatically generate the project network. To validate the performance of Least Modification approach, we have compared its performance with an ordinary minimal distance approach for 21 test cases. The experiment showed that the Least Modification approach could reduce the modification effort significantly.