Project management must keep the various activities of a job in mind when they are creating a plan or conveying steps in a procedure. A successor activity is the descriptor to define a task which occurs following a predecessor activity. Order is very important in business. Should an employee not understand the order being communicated by those in project management, the overall result of the task could suffer. Employees need to be told by management the correct list of predecessor and successor activities.
To ensure that employees understand the order of steps required, those in project management frequently use charts and maps to illustrate their points. The steps should follow in a logical order. Even if the activities are not labeled as successor or predecessor their placement in the flow chart or map should be obvious. Successor activities will always come after predecessor tasks. Even if the employees are not aware of the proper titles for the activities, those in project management must know them so that they can create accurate and easy to read flow charts and maps for the project.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.
