subject: How Dependencies save you time when planning and managing your gantt chart [print this page] Dependencies are particularly useful for the management stage of your project. The reason for this is that schedule slippages can be automatically handled by the solution, meaning that you no longer need to manually update each task schedule. The larger your project plan, the greater the time savings you will gain by using dependencies.
Finish to Start Dependencies.
These are the most common form of dependencies used. This approach may be used, as an example when one task cannot start before another is completed. An example of this would be that a honeymoon cannot commence until the wedding ceremony has been completed. These dependencies result in a clear waterfall like structure in your project planning. Assuming all tasks in a series have a cascading finish to start relationship, then if the first task slips by 5 days (ie, your wedding day moves out 5 days, then all dependent tasks will also move out by the same amount of time (your honeymoon will also move out 5 days).
Start to Start Dependencies.
This is where one project task cannot commence until another has commenced. An example of this may be that you cannot turn on the hose until you have started to wash your car.
Start to Finish Dependencies
One task cannot finish before another task has commenced.
Finish to Finish Dependencies
One task cannot finish before another task finishes.
We have managed to build all these dependencies into our excel gantt chart templates, to enable users that may not have much experience with dependencies, but don't want to spend hundreds on MS Project, give dependencies a try.
How Dependencies save you time when planning and managing your gantt chart
