Summary Activity or Hammock Activity are one and the same.
The term “Hammock activity” is defined in the previous versions of PMBOK, however, there is no mention of “Hammock Activity” in PMBOK 6. Nevertheless, PMBOK 6 has the concept “Summary Activity” mentioned. There are questions asked in PMP exam regarding Hammock Activity, so it is important to understand this concept. Lets dive in…
PMBOK Definition of Summary Activity
Summary Activity is a group of related schedule activities aggregated and displayed as a single activity.
A large project can be divided into various sub-projects to make the project more manageable. Now, the division on the project can be done with respect to various factors, such as division by scope, division by schedule, division by cost etc.
Now, if the division of project into sub-projects is done by schedule, then there would be multiple activities in a single schedule. All the activities in a schedule can be combined and displayed as a single activity called as Summary Activity or Hammock Activity.
So a Summary Activity can be defined as a group of related activities in a schedule displayed as one activity.
What should be the duration of a Hammock Activity ?
There is no specific benchmark value for the duration of Summary or Hammock activity. The duration is decided based on various factors such as entire duration of the project, complexity of project, and stakeholder preferences etc.
Summary Activity helps the higher management to have an overview of the project with out getting into too much details. It provides the summary of the project. Thus the name “Summary Activity”.