Project network
Diagram showing the order of activities
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A project network diagram, also known an activity network diagram (AND) is a graph that displays the order in which a project’s activities are to be completed. Derived from the work breakdown structure, the terminal elements of a project are organized sequentially based on the relationship among them. It is typically drawn from left to right to reflect project chronology.[1]
Techniques
Activity-on-Node
The Activity-on-Node (AON) technique uses nodes to represent individual project activities and path arrows to designate the sequence of activity completion.[2] Nodes are labelled using information pertaining to the activity. According to Project Management, nodes should at least display the following information:[3]
- Identifier
- Descriptive label
- Activity duration
- Early start time
- Early finish time
- Late start time
- Late finish time
- Activity float (slack)
Start and finish times are used to determine the critical path of a project. Activity float, or slack, time is used in project crashing.
Other techniques
The condition for a valid project network is that it doesn't contain any circular references.
Project dependencies can also be depicted by a predecessor table. Although such a form is very inconvenient for human analysis, project management software often offers such a view for data entry.
An alternative way of showing and analyzing the sequence of project work is the design structure matrix or dependency structure matrix.
