Hello Jay, I may not know the American Football but I can share with you an example of an FF and SS relationships in project management.
1. FF relationship is actually and simply used when we want two tasks to finish at the same time. ie: You would ideally want all the food to be somehow ready for eating at the same time. Of course, we are not including Entree, Main Meal and Dessert. I am referring to for instance Main Meal preparation Project. Entree and dessert would consist of its own sets of tasks which can also be defined as FF depending on whether you want to serve them at the same time.

2. SS relationships are best remembered from their names. Start To Start. In this case we want two tasks to start at the same time. In other words, Task 2 cannot start until Task 1 starts. You can also say, that until Tasks 1 starts, Tasks 2 cannot start. For instance, during a painting project, as you start painting work in the first room, you may want to start hanging wall papers in the second room. You don't want to start working in second room until the work in room 1 is started. You decided to start at the same time.

Hope this helps.

I am a sports fan, so I try to think of PM in terms of sports so it will make sense to me. I have a question for those of you who know American football. I'm trying to figure out what the relationship is for a football play I saw this past Sunday. It was a play in the game between the Houston Texans and the New York Jets.

Here's the scenario: T.J. Yates is Houston's QB. He threw a lateral pass to the WR, Cecil Shorts, who then threw a forward pass to the RB, Alfred Blue who was waiting in the end zone for the football. Of course, Touchdown!!!

I'm pretty certain the the relationship with Yates and Shorts is a finish to finish.. My reasoning is, Yates has to finish throwing the ball to Shorts when it leaves his hands. Shorts then has to finish catching the ball. Once Shorts finishes catching the ball, he can then start the pass to Blue.

I feel as if the relationships are changing as the play taking shape. Shorts and Blue have a start to start relationship in the beginning of the play because they both start to run routes. Then the relationship changes because then Shorts starts to throw and Blue finishes in the end zone. Maybe I shouldn't use American football! LOL

Can somebody help me correct my understanding of something like this.