Fixed task duration for life of project and dynamic start/finishdates

[TJ]

Hi

The project I am planning has a task (or role) which is performed by a
single resource, is fixed at a number of days, and can happen at any
or different points of the project. An example is an auditor will
spend 5 days over the life of the project reviewing the project
progression.

In the Microsoft Project I would like to represent this in the
following way:
- In the Gantt a single bar stretches from the beginning to the end.
It has no linking tasks.
- The Start date is based on the first task of the project. Can this
be dynamic, based on the start date of the first task?
- The Finish date is based on the last task of the project. Can this
be dynamic, based on the finish date of the last task?
- The duration is to be locked at 5 days. Can the Resource Units
percent be adjusted automatically depending on the Start date and
Finish date?

I am a newbie to MS Project. If anybody knows how to do this I would
be most appreciated.
Thanks,
TJ

 

[Rob Schneider]

Hi

The project I am planning has a task (or role) which is performed by a
single resource, is fixed at a number of days, and can happen at any
or different points of the project. An example is an auditor will
spend 5 days over the life of the project reviewing the project
progression.

In the Microsoft Project I would like to represent this in the
following way:
- In the Gantt a single bar stretches from the beginning to the end.
It has no linking tasks.
- The Start date is based on the first task of the project. Can this
be dynamic, based on the start date of the first task?
- The Finish date is based on the last task of the project. Can this
be dynamic, based on the finish date of the last task?
- The duration is to be locked at 5 days. Can the Resource Units
percent be adjusted automatically depending on the Start date and
Finish date?

I am a newbie to MS Project. If anybody knows how to do this I would
be most appreciated.
Thanks,
TJ

I'm not sure I understand how you can nail the start of the 5 day task
to the beginning of a project and the fished of the 5 day task to the
finish of the last task of the project when it's likely (?) that the
duration of the project will be otehr than 5 days.

Are you perhaps confusing duration and work?

Work would be 5 billable hours of the auditor spread across the entire
project which say could be 20 days. Which means the auditor would work
5/20=.20 hours/day over the duration of 20 days?

You can use Paste Link to nail the start and finish of tasks based on
other tasks ... but before you do, ensure you think through what you are
trying to do.

 

[Jon Smith]

If you need to create such a task, then you will need to use the hammock task
format.

1. Create a milestone with 0 duration called Start and setup a predecessor
from this task to your first real task
2. Create another milestone with 0 duration called End and setup a
predecessor from your last real task to this task
3. Copy the Start date of the Start task via Ctrl-C (or icon)
4. Go to your task that you want to setup this dynamic link and either
click, Edit, Paste Special or right click and click on Paste Special
5. Click on Paste Link and you will see a grey triangle in the corner of
the date cell that you can double click back to the Start Task start date
(this is an OLE link)
6. Repeat this process for the Finish Date of the End task
7. Your task that stretches over the project will dynamically expand or
contract in the duration column, but you must manually change the work column
- this technique is quite useful for project management tasks (such as status
reports and team meeetings) that must stretch the life of the project - I
typically put the hours involved in the notes so I can easily change them on
a split screen - this also allows you to get better reporting features for
the amount of time spent in project management versus "real work" if you have
a customer who doesn't understand the value of project management yet. While
you can get the same numbers from repeating tasks, it is much cleaner and
easier with single tasks for each project management function. If you are
pursuing something such as CMMI and need to have your project's team members
involved in items such as PI/SEPG or SQA meetings, you now have a way to
properly cost account for your team's involvement in a clean, easy technique.
8. This technique is much easier to use than the repeating tasks "feature",
which I encourage all of my students to avoid if possible - however, if you
are using Project Server, then the hammock task feature will not work
correctly and you must suffer through repeating tasks. Alas, while Project
Server is a really great tool, it can crimp your "workarounds."

Hope this helps.

r/Jon