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Each month, Tom Mochal, President of TenStep, Inc. presents project management tips and techniques for planning and managing a project. TenStep, Inc. has a comprehensive, scalable project management process called TenStep (www.TenStep.com), as well as a project lifecycle process called LifecycleStep (www.LifecycleStep.com). Pipeline readers receive 20% off any TenStep or LifecycleStep purchase by entering the coupon code of "Pipeline" in their purchase.
When you are building the network diagram, you will find that all of the activities in the work breakdown structure are related to at least one other activity. In many cases, the relationships will involve more than two activities.
The most common precedence relationship is when one activity cannot start until another activity has finished. This is referred to as a Finish-to-Start relationship. However, there are four ways that one or more activities can be related to another one.
Finish-to-Start, Activity B cannot start until Activity A has completed.
For instance, you must install a new computer before the new software can be loaded
Start-to-Finish, Activity A must start before Activity B can finish (rare).
For instance, let’s assume that you want to fertilize your garden, but the plants must all be wet. Therefore, person B must continue to water the garden until person A is ready to fertilize. The relationship says you must start fertilizing the garden (A) before I can finish watering the garden (B).
Start to Start, Activity A must start before Activity B can start.
For instance, assume that you are having your walls painted and wallpaper is being hung in another room. You want to minimize the total disruption and so you want to make sure both activities happen at the same time. The relationship says that you must start painting the walls (A), before wallpaper can be hung (B). This relationship is based on the activity start times. The end times of each activity are not related and, in fact, one activity could end at a much later time than the other.
Finish to Finish, Activity A must finish before Activity B can finish.
For instance, assume you are cooking dinner and you want the major foods to complete cooking at approximately the same time. The relationship says that the turkey must finish cooking (A) before the potatoes finish cooking (B). This relationship is based on the end times. They can each start whenever they need to, as long as they finish in this order.
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