A Summary (rollup level in the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)) that has one or more predecessor or successor
Why does it matter if a Summary has a Predecessor or Successor?
Even though the software allows them, having predecessors and successors on summary tasks is not considered a good practice by any of the recognized Government or Industry publications related to best practices in a schedule. Furthermore, the predecessor or successor of a summary is added implicitly to each item below the WBS level of the summary. This makes it more difficult to perform a Critical Path Method (CPM) analysis and pinpoint the root cause of schedule variances that affect downstream effort in a schedule. You may see a summary on the critical path (implying that all tasks below the summary are critical as well) when, in fact, only one task below the summary was delayed.
Resolving tasks with Predecessors or Successors on Summary Tasks
Perform the Audit and Click on each item in the resulting tasks list to go to the offending task. You can also click Filter for Items Below to display tasks with audit issues and record the offending condition in the Integrity Note log field.
Schedulers should work directly with subject matter experts and the project team to discretely identify the tasks below the summary that are constrained by other predecessor or successor tasks in the project.
What Else to Consider
Dependency relationships on Summaries is not recommended by the Project Management Institute's PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) under any circumstances.
