| Activity | Task(s) of the project that consumes time while people/equipment either work or wait.
|
 |
|
|
| Activity-on-arrow (AOA) | Activity-on-arrow method for drawing project networks. The activity is shown as an arrow.
|
|
|
|
| Activity-on-node (AON) | Activity-on-node method for drawing project networks. The activity is on the node (rectangle).
|
|
|
|
| Burst activity | An activity that has more than one activity immediately following it.
|
|
|
|
| Concurrent engineering | Crossfunctional teamwork in new-product development projects that provides product design, quality engineering, and manufacturing process engineering all at the same time.
|
|
|
|
| Critical path | The longest activity path(s) through the network. The critical path can be distinguished by identifying the collection of activities that all have the same minimum slack.
|
|
|
|
| Early and late times | Early times are the earliest an activity can start or finish given the activities that must occur before the activity can start. Late times are the latest times an activity can start or finish without delaying the completion of the project.
|
|
|
|
| Free slack | The maximum amount of time an activity can be delayed from its early start (ES) without affecting the early start (ES) of any activity immediately following it.
|
|
|
|
| Gantt chart | A graphic presentation of project activities depicted as a time-scaled bar line.
|
|
|
|
| Hammock activity | A special-purpose, aggregate activity that identifies the use of fixed resources or costs over a segment of the project—e.g., a consultant. Derives its duration from the time span between other activities.
|
|
|
|
| Lag relationship | The relationship between the start and/ or finish of a project activity and the start and/or finish of another activity. The most common lag relationships are (1) finish-to-start, (2) finish-to-finish, (3) start-tostart, and (4) start-to-finish.
|
|
|
|
| Merge activity | An activity that has more than one activity immediately preceding it.
|
|
|
|
| Parallel activity. | One or more activities that can be carried on concurrently or simultaneously.
|
|
|
|
| Sensitivity | The likelihood that the critical path(s) will change once the project begins to be implemented.
|
|
|
|
| Total slack | The amount of time an activity can be delayed and not affect the project duration.
|