Joe is the project manager of the HJN Project. Joe’s project is a renovation of an office building.
There must be 30 hours between the painting activity and the carpet activity in the project

schedule to eliminate the risk of wet paint getting on the carpet. What is the best approach Joe
can do to alleviate this issue?

A.
Add lead time to the painting activity.

B.
Change the relationship of the carpet activity and the painting activity to finish-to-finish.

C.
Create a dummy activity between the painting activity and the carpet activity for the duration of
the drying process.

D.
Add lag time to the carpet activity.

Explanation:
By adding lag time to the carpet activity, Joe can move the start time of the carpet activity by 30
hours. A lag time is a delay between the predecessor and the successor tasks. Sometimes it may
be needed to schedule a delay between the predecessor and the successor tasks. For example, if
two coats of paint are required to paint a car, then the final coat should be applied only when the
first coat dries. This delay is known as the lag time. The lag time is entered as a positive value.
The lag time can be entered as a duration or as a percentage of the predecessor’s task duration. It
is entered on the Predecessor tab in the Task Information dialog box.
Answer option A is incorrect. A lead time is the time that overlaps between the predecessor and
the successor tasks. The successor task can start before the predecessor task finishes.
Answer option C is incorrect. Dummy activities are not the preferred method of project scheduling.
Answer option B is incorrect. Changing the relationship of the activity to finish-to-finish would not
prevent the activities from overlapping.