The project management term lead refers to the specific project management technique on which the logical relationship between a series of previously scheduled work schedule is hereby modified for the purposes of fostering the speeding up or acceleration of the activity that is scheduled to succeed the previously scheduled one. Here is one perfect example of the lead technique can be found in an instance in which a finish to start dependency is being determined. In some instances, a finish to start dependency may have a particular lead built in (let’s use an example of a finish to start dependency of 10 days). What that means is that the successor activity may begin 10 days prior to the official completion of the preceding activity. When attempting to understand the concept of lead, it is helpful to understand the concept of lag, the definition of which should also be understood for full conceptualization. One critical lag related element to keep in mind is, typically, a negative lead serves as the equivalent to a positive lag.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.