Best Practices Checklist: Sequencing All Activities

• The schedule contains complete network logic between all activities so that it can correctly forecast the start and end dates of activities within the plan.

• The majority of relationships within the detailed schedule are finish-to-start.

• Except for the start and finish milestones, every activity within the schedule has at least one predecessor and at least one successor.

• Any activity that is missing predecessor or successor logic—besides the start and finish milestones—is clearly justified in the schedule documentation.

• The schedule contains no dangling logic. That is,

  • Each activity (except the start milestone) has an F-S or S-S predecessor that drives its start date.

  • Each activity (except the finish milestone and deliverables that leave the program without subsequent effect on the program) has an F-S or F-F successor that it drives.

• The schedule does not contain start-to-finish logic relationships.

• Summary activities do not have logic relationships because the logic is specified for activities that are at the lowest level of detail in the schedule.

• Instead of SNET constraints, conditions of supply by an outside vendor or contractor are represented as actual activities in the schedule.

• Date constraints are thoroughly justified in the schedule documentation. Unavoidable hard constraints are used judiciously and are fully justified in reference to some controlling event outside the schedule.

• Lags are used in the schedule only to denote the passage of time between two activities.

• Every effort is made not to use lags and leads but to break activities into smaller tasks to identify realistic predecessors and successors so that logic interfaces are clearly available for needed dependency assignments.

• Lags and leads in a schedule are used judiciously and are justified by compelling reasons outside the schedule in its documentation.

• The schedule is assessed for path convergence. That is, activities with many predecessors have been examined to see whether they are needed and whether alternative logic can be used to link some predecessors to other activities.