If you've finished the project template creation process discussed in the last post, then you are ready to start thinking about how your tasks and activities link together. If you have worked with Microsoft Project, then you know about task dependencies. If you are migrating from Excel, then the idea might be new. Basically, tasks have relationships. That is, often one task must be finished before another one can get started. This is called a finish-to-start task type. There are four task types:
1.Finish-to-start
2.Start-to-start
3.Finish-to-finish
4.Start-to-finish
If you set up your tasks with dependencies or relationships, then you can leverage what we call 'intelligent scheduling.' This allows a project manager to change the start date of the project and the tasks will automatically shift and correct (assuming you have not used any constraints, but we'll get into that later). The other advantage is that if you change the task duration or timeframe needed to perform the task, then the schedule will shift as well. The 'geeky' definitions of the task dependencies listed above are:
Finish-to-start - The preceding task must finish before the successor task (task following it) can get started
Start-to-start - The preceding task must start before the successor can start, but they can start in parallel
Finish-to-finish - The preceding task must finish before the successor can finish
Start-to-finish - The preceding task must start before the successor can finish A good project template will use these task types so that the projects created from the template will be as flexible as possible.
You may link your tasks using drag and drop on our interactive Gantt chart, or you may add predecessors in the task list view. If you are migrating from Microsoft Project, then the easiest method is to add the 'predecessors by number' and 'task number' columns. This allows you to work as you would in Microsoft Project, simply adding the predecessor task number and the same abbreviations in Microsoft Project. For example, 3SS means that task 3 is the predecessor task to the current task and it is a start-to-start relationship type. You may need to sit with your team to determine what the right task flow is, but believe me it's worth the time to get a great project template that is available for continual re-use.