Advice for the Project Management Professional (PMP)

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Appendix A
FIGURE A-26 Time File with Durations Entered
Establishing Task Dependencies
To use Project 2007 to adjust schedules automatically and to do critical path analysis, you
must determine the dependencies or relationships among tasks. Project 2007 provides
three methods for creating task dependencies: using the Link Tasks button, using the Predecessors
column of the Entry table or the Predecessors tab in the Task Information dialog
box, or clicking and dragging the Gantt chart symbols for tasks with dependencies.
To create dependencies using the Link Tasks button, highlight tasks that are related
and then click the Link Tasks button on the toolbar. For example, to create a finish-tostart
dependency between Task 1 and Task 2, click any cell in row 1, drag down to row 2,
and then click the Link Tasks button. The default type of link is finish-to-start. In the
Project Tracking Database example, all the tasks use this default relationship. You will learn
about other types of dependencies later in this appendix.
TIP
Selecting tasks is similar to selecting cells in Excel. To select adjacent tasks, click and drag the mouse.
You can also click the first task, hold down the Shift key, and then click the last task. To select nonadjacent
tasks, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key as you click tasks in order of their dependencies.
When you use the Predecessors column of the Entry table to create dependencies, you
must manually enter the information. To create dependencies manually, type the task row
number of the preceding task in the Predecessors column of the Entry table. For
example, Task 3 in Table A-3 has Task 2 as a predecessor, which can be entered in the Predecessors
column, meaning that Task 3 cannot start until Task 2 is finished. To see the Predecessors
column of the Entry table, move the split bar to the right. You can also doubleclick
on the task, click the Predecessors tab in the Task Information dialog box, and enter
the predecessors there. (This is more work than just typing it in the Predecessor column.)
You can also create task dependencies by clicking the Gantt chart symbol for a task and
then dragging to the Gantt chart symbol for a task that succeeds it. For example, you could
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