Concepts For Pmp Exam Preparation

By Author: Kimberly Bloch
Total Articles: 16
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In time management, very important concepts for pmp exam preparation are the tools and techniques for sequencing activities.

Tools and Techniques for Sequencing Activities

A manager can apply any one of several sequencing tools to organize and schedule their activities.

- Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

This technique uses an illustrative approach to sequencing activities that uses boxes and rectangles to represent each activity. The visual representation helps a project manager to see and connect activities by precedence. The activities are studied typically to determine the logical relationship and are connected to each other by arrows, flowing from left to right. This technique helps to identify those activities that must happen before others can begin or finish. This type of analyzing is called Critical Path Methodology (CPM). There are many dependency relationship types to employ when using PDM. PMP exam prep must include PDM.

Finish-to-Start (FS) type is the most common dependency, which begins an activity only when the one before it is complete.

Finish-to-Finish ...
... (FF) type allows completion of one activity based on the completion of the activity before it.

Start-to-Start (SS) type starts an activity based on the initiation of the activity before it.

Start-to-Finish (SF) type allows completion of an activity only when the activity before is initiated. This is the most rarely used method.

- Dependency Determination

Dependencies are situations that affect the sequencing of activities due to circumstances both internal and external to the project. Typically, a project manager may encounter three types of dependencies. PMP exam prep should detail:

Mandatory dependencies

Discretionary dependencies

External dependencies

- Applying Leads and Lags

These are techniques used to either start or delay an activity based on its relationship with the previous activity or predecessor. Since dependency deals specifically with the beginning or ending of an activity, leads and lags are methods to start or delay an activity before the actual predecessor activity is started or finished. For example, you can have two activities scheduled as a Finish-to-Start type dependency. Applying a lead to this could result in having the successor activity begin five days before the finish of the predecessor activity. PMP exam prep should include examples of leads and lags.

- Schedule Network Templates

Using templates helps to make sequencing activities faster, efficient and consistent. These templates can be used to illustrate all the project activities or divided into a sub network or fragment network. PMP exam preparation should include examples of the templates.

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