What is the relationship between a predecessor activity and a successor activity?

Predecessor Relationships

You can define and edit predecessors when you create or edit an activity.

A predecessor is an activity that must start or finish before another activity can start or finish. Each predecessor is linked to the activity by a specific type of dependency. There are four kinds of dependencies:

Task Dependency

Description

Finish-to-Start (FS)

The dependent activity cannot begin until the activity that it depends on is complete.

Start-to-Start (SS)

The dependent activity can begin anytime after the activity that it depends on begins.

The SS relationship does not require that both activities begin simultaneously.

Finish-to-Finish (FF)

The dependent activity can be completed anytime after the activity that it depends on is completed.

The FF relationship does not require that both activities be completed simultaneously.

Start-to-Finish (SF)

The dependent activity can be completed anytime after the activity that it depends on begins.

The SF relationship does not require that the dependent activity be completed concurrent with the beginning of the activity on which it depends.

For information on how activity date constraints affect precedence relationships, see Start Dates and Precedence Relationships.

Leads and Lags

Lead and lag is an overlap or delay between two tasks with a precedence relationship:

Lead time is an overlap within a precedence relationship. You enter lead time as a negative value.

For example, if you have a Finish-to-Finish precedence relationship and want to specify that the dependent task can actually be completed 3 days before its predecessor completes, you would enter FF-3day.

Lag time is a delay between two tasks in a precedence relationship. You enter lag time as a positive value.

For example, if you have a Finish-to-Finish precedence relationship and want to specify that the dependent task cannot be completed until 3 days after its predecessor completes, you would enter FF+3day.

Specifying Precedence, Lead, and Lag

You define predecessor relationships when creating or editing the dependent task. Each predecessor task is represented by its task ID number followed by a dependency type and, optionally, the lead or lag time. The task ID number is listed in the ID column of the Schedule table.

What is the relationship between a predecessor activity and a successor activity?
 

Do not use spaces when entering a precedence relationship with a lead or lag.

For example, you create Activity A (ID number 1) and Activity B (ID number 2). You want to specify that Activity B cannot start until Activity A is completed. To do this, edit Activity B and enter the following information into the Predecessors field:

1FS

What is the relationship between a predecessor activity and a successor activity?

Activity B cannot start until Activity A completes.

If you want to allow Activity B to start one day before Activity A completes, you would specify a lead:

1FS-1day

What is the relationship between a predecessor activity and a successor activity?

If you want Activity B to start one day after Activity A completes, you would specify a lag:

1FS+1day

What is the relationship between a predecessor activity and a successor activity?


The logically subsequent activity

In project management a successor is an activity that follows another activity – not in the chronological sense but according to their dependency to each other. A successor activity can have several direct predecessor activities.

To determine the direct predecessors of an activity, you must clarify which activities you must complete before you can start the activity you’re currently looking at (reasons can be technical, organizational or methodological in nature).

To determine the direct successors, you must clarify which activities can only begin after you completed the current activity (reasons can be technical, organizational or methodological in nature).

Successors usually follow their predecessors in a chronological order, but there are some (very few) cases where the successor starts before its predecessor (start-to-end – see dependencies). This is a rare case however and it’s often hard to comprehend as it goes against our notion of time.

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Other terms


What is predecessor and successor activities?

By definition, the predecessor is the first task; it controls the start or end date for all related successor tasks. The successor, by contrast, is the task whose start or end date is controlled by the predecessor. A dependency is the relationship between predecessor and successor tasks.

What is the dependency which predecessor and successor start together?

Dependencies are the relationships of the preceding tasks to the succeeding tasks. Tasks may have multiple preceding tasks and multiple succeeding tasks. The most common dependency relationship is a finish-to-start relationship. Task P (predecessor) must be finished before task S (successor) can start.

What is successor and predecessor in project management example?

Predecessors and successors in project management describe activities that depend upon one another to proceed. These dependencies among activities will determine the order in which the project plan proceeds. Predecessors in project management are activities that must begin or end before a successor task can proceed.

What is a successor activity?

In project management a successor is an activity that follows another activity – not in the chronological sense but according to their dependency to each other. A successor activity can have several direct predecessor activities.