A project manager has gathered time estimates for a new project's activities and is now ready to begin developing the schedule. Which of the following would the project manager most likely do NEXT?

A WBS is created earlier in the planning phase before time estimates are gathered, so it would already exist at this stage.

Determining predecessors and dependencies is required before a schedule network can be built - without knowing which activities must precede or follow others, it is impossible to sequence tasks, calculate durations along a path, or identify the critical path.

Determining the critical path requires that activity sequences and dependencies already be fully defined, so it cannot come before establishing predecessors.

Prioritizing tasks is not a formal schedule development step; activity sequencing through dependency definition fulfills this function within scheduling methodology.