A project network diagram (PND) is a diagrammatic representation of the relationship of a project’s work activities and how they will progress from start to finish (Phillips, 2014). Project managers have to deal with various stakeholders that include the management, customer, and project team members who have a big stake in the delivery of the project. Project managers face triple constraints of time, scope, and cost. A PND is a useful tool that helps a project manager to plan the activities of a project to ensure that the project is completed on time.
A project manager can use the precedence diagramming method (PDM) to create a PND. There are four possible relationship types between activities in a PDM:
Finish-to start (FS): In this relationship, activity A must be complete before activity B can begin. For instance, the walls must be plastered before they are painted (Phillips, 2014).
Start-to Start (SS): in this relationship, activity A must start before activity B starts (Phillips, 2014). For instance, in making doors, the cutting has to be complete before the assembly can start.
Finish-to-finish (FF): in this relationship, activity A must be complete before activity B can be completed (Phillips, 2014). For instance, when one team is installing a radio base dish and another team is doing a test drive to test the signal from the radio base station.
Start-to-finish: in this relationship, task A must start so that task B may be completed. This technique is also known as just-in-time scheduling (Phillips, 2014).
The PND helps project managers to illustrate to the various stakeholders the relationship between the work activities. PND helps proper planning of the project activities to ensure that the project is completed on time.
References
Phillips, J. (2014). CAPM/PMP Project Management Certification Exam Guide. 3rd ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
