Lead and Lag and Its Implications to Project Management, Essay Example

Lead time occurs when two tasks can overlap each other but also have a dependency upon each other.  Lead time is the time that a successor task can start prior to the finish of the task in which it is dependent upon. For example, when a program is being developed by the software architects portions of the code or program could start testing prior to the entire program being complete.  The time the secondary task of testing starts to the completion of the coding task equals the lead time.  Lag time is the time between when one task ends and the next task begins.  If two tasks must follow each other without any overlap in activity the time between stopping one activity and starting the other is the lag.  In project management, there could be opportunities in looking for the increase of lead times between activities and decreasing the non-value add of lag time between activities.  This would ensure the most efficient use of time and resources could be achieved to meet the project’s quality, schedule and cost constraints.