Links: relationships, lags and leads

A schedule is activities and the links between them. Four kinds of link, a lag, a lead, and two habits that keep them honest.

Select an activity and open Predecessors: who it waits for, the kind of link, and the lag. Four kinds. Finish-to-start comes first: this starts when that finishes.

Start-to-start: Erect steel begins when Pour footings begins. Finish-to-finish: they end together. Start-to-finish is rare. The tick under Driving marks the link that sets the date. The other has room to spare.

A lag is a wait: two working days after the footings cure, the steel goes up. On a Standard schedule: working days, elapsed days, or a share of the predecessor's duration.

A negative lag is a lead: the next one starts before this one is done. Use it rarely. Add… is the Full way to make a link: search, pick, then choose the kind and the lag.

Type a link by name and lag: Erect steel plus two days. Spacing and case do not matter. View, Logic lines, draws or hides the links. On a big schedule it asks first; lines cost time.

A line to the edge means a partner is off screen. Go to successor lists them. Go to predecessor does the same, backwards: right-click, then choose from the list.

First habit: no open ends. Commission leads nowhere, so Handover does not wait for it. Second habit: a lead hides a risk. Here the steel starts three days early; split the work instead.

The lead is gone. If steel can really start early, split Erect steel and link the first half. Successors is the same story from the other side: one link, seen from both ends.

That was links. Next in the Guide: constraints, the dates you pin, and what each kind does to the engine.

Taken from the video’s English captions.