Merlin Project: Using Lead / Lag

You are using Merlin Project and appreciate its dynamic planning options for scheduling? Then you already know how to use depedencies.

Linking activities in different ways is very easy and has been explained in one of our previous posts. If not already done so, just take a look at that post.

How to define a lead or lag between activities?

This is how to proceed:

Lead

• Two activities ,A1' and ,A2' are linked by a dependency
• Select the dependency
• Within the ,Dependency' inspector set ,5 days' for ,Lead/Lag'
• this will push ,A2' 5 days in the future

This is what it should look like:

Lag

• Now add a third activity ,A3'
• Link ,A2' and ,A3' by an ,End to Start' dependency
• Select this dependency
• Within ,Dependency' inspector set ,-3 days' for ,Lead/Lag'
• this will push ,A3' to start 3 days before the expected end of ,A2'

Again, this is an example what it should look like:

Using dependencies your scheduling stays flexible, even more if using lead/lag values.