Sequence activities

Once the activities are identified, the next step is to sequence them based on their dependencies. This step defines the logical sequence of work considering inter disciplinary constraints thus providing the greatest efficiency. Major chunk of the activity sequencing happens during planning and continues throughout the project. The output of ‘Sequence activities’ is the activity sequence diagrams. The key steps involved are;

• Precedence diagramming method (PDM) or the Activity on Node (AON) diagrams (if the number of activities are very high)
  • The activities are represented by the nodes and are connected by arrows to show their logical dependencies like;
    • Finish to Start – Something has to finish for me to start something else
    • Finish to Finish – Something has to finish for me to finish something
    • Start to Start – Something has to start for me to start something else
    • Start to finish – Something has to start for me to finish something else
  • Dependencies can be either mandatory or discretionary
  • Can be highly scaled. PDM is the underlying logic for most of the software scheduling tools
• Arrow diagramming method (ADM) or Activity on Arrow (AOA) diagrams (if the number of activities are very low)
  • In arrow diagramming, activities are represented by the arrows and connected at the nodes
  • Ideal for small projects where the number of activities are very less
• The output of activity sequencing are the project schedule network diagrams
• The network diagrams are further optimized through leads and lags. Leads represent parallelism between two activities where as lag represents waiting time. Adjusting leads and lags is one of the ways of optimizing schedule.