Sequence Activities : Project Management

 

Project Scheduling is creating the lists of activities, deliverables, and milestones within a project. These activities and deliverables need to be in a certain format and sequence in order to correctly estimate the time and resources required to complete a project. 

Sequence Activities help us in identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities. The main advantage of this activity is that it defines the logical sequence of work to obtain the highest possible product within the scope of the project. The major techniques and tools which are used to apply this process include the Precedence Diagraming Method (PDM). Sequence activities are usually of four major types:

Start to Finish:

In this dependency, there is a definite association between the start of one activity and the end date of a successor activity.

Example: Consider a scenario where you have to conduct a cricket match. Before the start of actual play, a coin is tossed to decide which team is going to bat first.

Activity A: Tossing of a coin

Activity B: Start of the play

You cannot start the actual match before the toss. So when activity ‘A’ (toss) is finished then activity ‘B’ would start.

Start to Start:

There is a distinct connection between the starting of both the activities. However, the completion of both activities is independent.

Example: In Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), as the software team is gathering requirements from the client, the graphic designer or frontend developer starts developing wireframes and prototypes.

Activity A: Requirement gathering

Activity B: Development of wireframes and prototypes

Both the activities go side by side.

Finish to Start:

Finish-start dependency means an activity ‘B’ cannot be started before the previously started activity ‘A’ has ended.

Example: Consider the example of a metro bus service. In the beginning, the tracks and bridges are constructed. In order to test the bus service, the construction of tracks needs to be finished.

Activity A: Construction of tracks

Activity B: Testing of buses

Finish to Finish:

In this type of dependency, both the activities are ending at the same time however starting time of these activities can be different.

Example: As we know, unit testing is performed by the developer. During the unit test phase, if a bug is found, the developer fixes that bug and performs a test for it. This process is continued as long as the last bug is removed. As there is no bug, the process of testing is ultimately stopped.

Activity A: Bug identification

Activity B: Testing