Determining Relationships

 

          The ‘Sequencing’ stage of project schedule management can be one of its most critical stages. By the end of this blog, you’ll know the best ways your organization can conquer this stage. First, you’ll have to dissect project tasks to determine possible dependencies between them. Not only this, but determining their types as well whether they be mandatory/discretionary or external/internal. Mandatory or discretionary dependencies are determined using hard and soft logic while internal/external ones are determined by factors above or under the organization’s control.

 

Utilizing Diagrams

           Network diagrams are also a very useful technique for sequencing projects activities. You can use either the arrow diagraming (ADM) or precedence diagramming method (PDM), whichever style diagram you prefer  more. ADM uses arrows to represent activities in between nodes which show the ordering in activities to perform before others. PDM uses a boxed approach for representing activities, similar to how nodes are formatted using ADM. Arrows between boxes represent different types of relationships based on how time affects completion of activities.

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Note that defining the sequence of tasks as project managers is critical for using more powerful scheduling tools such as network diagrams or a critical path analysis.