What are Task Predecessors and Successors?

I’m back at my favorite café in Seattle, and I’m thinking of work. I’m thinking on how in my previous post inspired me and I talked about leads and lags that are in the predecessor and successor column in #MicrosoftProject owned by @Bill Gates.

I have gotten questions as to what these are. Now I’m trying to think of a way to explain them in simplest forms. You know that a lot of new inexperienced project and program managers need to understand task predecessors and task successors. They usually don’t have any training in planning and sequencing work where you take into account; workers, money available for project, and the tight deadlines we need to get to. These are usually by contract, and usually involve people working with scarce resources available.

All projects consist of tasks that need sequencing to finish successfully. The problem is we don’t know how to sequence them. We try to keep a list of these chores or tasks in our head. That doesn’t work well, so some of us upgrade to writing them on paper physically or virtually (like using Microsoft Word).

After that, some of us that have mathematical training, drag our feet to using spreadsheets (or calculating sheets as known in other languages). A universal tool seems to be Microsoft Excel. We try to sequence them correctly, but we miss a lot of detail needed in planning a project successfully. Probably because we don’t understand the time it’s going to really take because it’s hard for the human mind to understand time. We know that yesterday already happened, and tomorrow may happen. We live in today, and that is our experience to always live in the now.

Using spreadsheets (calculating sheets) is an improvement and works okay for a lot of simple projects. Once we get a grasp as to how hard it is to manage time and money available to spend on a project, then we have to decide if it’s worth to spend lots of money on a tool specific for project sequencing in a more technical and mathematical way.

If we do decide to buy a project task management tool that takes into account sequencing based on project start date and days needed to complete each task (task duration), then for all small and medium projects you only need Microsoft Project.

With Project Start Date and list of tasks with each estimated task duration, then we can sequence the task in a coherent way that makes sense to the team, from the most novice of team members to the most expert of them.

Then you need to take each task individually, let’s call it Task X and look at the task list that you already have. Which tasks will happen directly BEFORE Task X? These are called task Predecessor(s).

Now look at Task X and the list of tasks you already have. Which tasks will happen directly AFTER Task X? These are called task Successor(s).

Once you have identified tasks that come before and after a task such as Task X, then you have identified the task predecessors and successors.

Hope that helps. Have a great day at work. :)

Written by Minerva Goree - Mathematician

Find me at YouTube @MadSchedules and @BudgetwithMinerva

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