Guide: Answering Questions on Lead and Lag Time in an Exam
Lead and Lag Time are crucial concepts within the Critical Path Method (CAPM) under project management, capturing the timing relationships between activities.
Importance: Understanding Lead and Lag Time helps in realistic project scheduling, risk anticipation, and efficient resource allocation. It ensures a well-developed timeline and a smoother process towards project completion.
Definition:
- Lead Time is an acceleration of the successor activity and can be defined as the time you can start a subsequent activity earlier than its predecessor is finished.
- Lag Time, on the other hand, is a delay in the successor activity. It is the time you must wait between the finish of a predecessor activity and the start of a successor activity.
How it Works: In project management, Lead and Lag Times are used for scheduling dependent activities. By manipulating Lead and Lag Time, project managers can better control the start and end times of the activities, allowing for more flexible and efficient project scheduling.
Answering Exam Questions: When dealing with Lead and Lag Time in exam questions, always identify the relationship between activities first. Then, calculate the project timeline based on the given Lead or Lag Time.
Exam Tips:
- Always read the question carefully. Understand the given relationship between activities. - Draw timelines or Gantt charts to visualize the Lead and Lag time if necessary- Don’t forget to add or subtract the Lead or Lag times when computing the activity’s start and end times- Practice typical CAPM questions on Lead and Lag Time to familiarize yourself with the concept and to check your understanding.