Your project tasks can depend on each other in a variety of ways. You’ll probably find that in most instances, one task must finish before another task begins. But this is only one type of task dependency. In another type of task dependency, two tasks can start together. For example, if the museum crew already knows where each clock is going to hang on the walls, they can begin attaching descriptive labels below each clock’s space while they are hanging clocks.
After you decide task sequence — you’ve identified the predecessor and successor tasks for each task — you need to decide which type of link to use to connect one task to another. Microsoft Project provides four different types of task links, which are described in the following table. By default, Microsoft Project applies a finish-to-start (FS) link to tasks, but you can choose the type of link that most accurately reflects the dependency between the tasks.
| To indicate | Use this task link | Gantt Chart example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A task starts after its predecessor finishes | Finish-to-start (FS) |  |
| Finish-to-start (FS) is the task link most frequently used. Start-to-finish (SF) is seldom used. |
The types of links you choose will affect your project length. Applying FS links between all tasks would probably drag out your project longer than necessary, because most projects involve some tasks that can overlap. One way to shorten your schedule is to look for where you can replace FS links with either SS or FF links.