Ordering the tasks

If your project breaks down into 100 tasks you can, in theory, start all 100 tasks at the same time, and the project will take as long as the longest task. There are two problems with this idea:

  • There are dependencies between some tasks.

  • People can only do so many things at a time, so tasks have to wait until people are free to do them.

A dependency is a link between activities, which means that they can only be done in a certain order. For example, for me to drive my car I have to put petrol in it – the task of driving is dependent on the task of filling up the petrol tank first. There are many forms of dependency, but in practice the only one you need to think about is the predecessor dependency. What tasks have to be completed ...

Get Project Management Step by Step: How to Plan and Manage a Highly Successful Project now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.