Primavera P6 Update. Release 24.12. Milestones now support four dependency types.

In Release 24.12, Oracle addressed a critical issue in Primavera P6, allowing any milestone to be linked with four types of dependencies for predecessor and successor activities.

Many believe that the ability to link any activity and milestone with four types of dependencies is a fundamental requirement for the Critical Path Method (CPM). Arguably, for three years (2022 – 2024), Primavera P6 was not a CPM-compatible tool.

💡 For instance, after the changes in Release 21.12, it wasn’t possible (without hacking the tool) to create a scenario with linking a milestone to a predecessor and successor with Finish-to-Start dependencies. Such logic is common in many schedules. Now  Oracle has recognised the problem and addressed it in Release 24.12.

💡 Export / Import will be easier now as all popular scheduling tools support the basic dependencies for activities and milestones.

It is worth noting that whether Primavera P6 is CPM-compatible now remains an open question. There are valid arguments that other network analysis components are necessary for a system to be CPM-compatible: calendars, lags, hammocks, resources, constraints, deadlines, priorities etc. P6 supports some of them, but not all at once. For instance, it still can’t calculate activity duration considering activity and resource calendars. This is a grey area, as the book “CPM knowledge” doesn’t exist. Everyone has their own opinion of it.

Four basic dependency types are fundamental capabilities for project data modelling, and I am glad to see that this issue is finally addressed in Primavera P6.