assignment delays?

[Jackie]

I would be grateful if you could let me know how to best represent the
following situation.
Say you have a bunch of tasks that are not linked to any of the tasks above,
and that by default start on the day you start the project eg 16 April. You
need these task to start further on in the schedule, but you cannot select
the date from the start column otherwise inflexible constraints are
introduced in the schedule. On the other hand I cannot lenghten the task
duration as this would not reflect the task actual duration.

Would you use assignment delay? Or how does MS Project deal with this.
Many thanks in advance.
J

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Jackie,

I'll start with a question
If there are no dependencies, why wouldn't these tasks all start today?

Maybe it's a matter of resource availability?
If yes, assign the resources to the taslks, and use resource leveling.
If no, make them all start today, that is a great situation )

HTH

 

[Jackie]

Hi Jan
I dont think I am explaining properly...sorry!
The whole point is that I dont want to start these tasks from day 1 of the
project but further on in the schedule, say in a couple of months. It is not
a matter of resources availability either, theses tasks will be started later
on, there is no rush for them to be done yet. They are not dependent on other
tasks to be carrried out either. How do I best represent this in MS Project?
I understand you cannot select the date from the start column otherwise
inflexible constraints are introduced in the schedule. On the other hand I
dont want to inflate the elapsed duration as it would not let me represent
when I actually need these tasks to be carried out.
Many thanks for your comments.
J

 

[Dave]

Hi Jan
I dont think I am explaining properly...sorry!
The whole point is that I dont want to start these tasks from day 1 of the
project but further on in the schedule, say in a couple of months. It is not
a matter of resources availability either, theses tasks will be started later
on, there is no rush for them to be done yet. They are not dependent on other
tasks to be carrried out either. How do I best represent this in MS Project?
I understand you cannot select the date from the start column otherwise
inflexible constraints are introduced in the schedule. On the other hand I
dont want to inflate the elapsed duration as it would not let me represent
when I actually need these tasks to be carried out.
Many thanks for your comments.
J


:

If you really don't want to start now (and why don't you if you could -
who knows what will happen in a few months time which will take away
resources you are counting on) then add start no earlier than
constraints. You seem to know how far you want to delay these tasks.
Doing this won't remove the project's flexibility from that point
onwards. It remains the case however that it is not clear why you want
to do this.

 

[Jackie]

so 'start no earlier than' constraint is!
many thanks
J

 

[Steve House]

Either that or make the Project Start Date the date you want your first task
to begin and resource leveling to time sequence the additional tasks after
that. Though I'm with Jan on this one, if a) you have the resources
available now; and b) you have the cash available now; and c) there's
nothing with a higher strategic priority also on your plate; and d) there's
nothing you have to do first in order to have the precursors in place that
are required to start the project, then go ahead and start it now, git 'er
done, and move on to other things.