change project end date

[Dido]

I am very new at project planning and EVM and need your help badly.
Somehow, I was able to put together a project plan that actually worked for
a fixed price contract. The start and end dates were final (well, supposed to
be). However, we got a month of extension and now I need to enter new tasks
(along with assigned work and durations of course), change the project end
date to 10/31/05 (which was 9/30/05 originally) and add more money for the
project. Can someone tell me how to do that?
MS project doesn't even let me change the project end date. I have no clue
what to do. Is it doing that because I am trying to make all these changes on
a baselined project? Is it possible for me to enter the new tasks, extra
money and continue with this project plan? (This is actually what upper
management of my customer wants us to do).
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Rod Gill]

I'm afraid editing the end date of a project is all too easy!!! I think you
urgently need to take a course in using Project or get someone onsite to
help you ASAP. The problem is we can't see what you've done. Undoubtedly
you've entered lots of dates which makes everything fixed and therefore time
consuming to edit. You need a fresh start with no dates, get all tasks
linked, resources assigned to reflect real costs and appropriate baselines
saved.

If you can tell us exactly how you fixed the end date, we can help you with
advice on how to undo what you've fixed. Trouble is that you may well have
made many edits most of which may well need undoing and links added etc.

If the contract is also time critical you need an accurate critical path to
tell you which tasks can't be slipped even a day and which ones can be.

You could send your schedule to someone on the group to review and clean up
but that is only a very partial solution as the scheduler really needs to be
at your premises talking with key managers and resources to create a
worthwhile result.

We're happy to help but from your description, if you want value from your
schedule, get onsite help so you can learn ready for the next contract.

 

[DonL]

Dido,

You should be able to just add the extra tasks that you need, paying
attention to the added cost to your budget. When a project is set to
"Schedule from: Project Start Date" in the Project Information
(Project|Project Information...) the Project Finish Date is grayed out (and
vise-versa if you select to schedule from the Project Finish Date), and is
determined by the finish date of the latest task in the project.

After adding the necessary new tasks, you can (re)baseline the selected
tasks that are affected by the "change order" for EVM purposes.

Hope this helps!

 

[Dido]

Don,
This makes sense. Let me give it a try.
Thanks,

D.

 

[Dido]

Rod,
The dates I entered when I did the scheduling was given to me by manager and
the customer. Don's explanations make sense. Since everything was planned
until the last date of the project, I was able to see the project end at the
time it was supposed to. So, I'm going to try to add the addtitonal tasks and
time allocated for them and see what happens.
In the meantime, it is a very good idea to get help. I really learn to do
this right. Do you think you can tell me where/how I can find these sites?
Thanks,

Didem

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

To put it succinctly, when you use it properly you don't put ANY dates into
Project except the project start date (except in certain specific
situations). Its job is to tell YOU the dates on which you should be
scheduling the tasks and NOT merely recording the dates on which you have
already determined the tasks will take place. You don't tell it the
schedule - you tell it what you need to do and what resources with which you
have to accomplish it and then based on that input it computes for you the
schedule of tasks that will achieve your goal in the shortest possible time.

Your project end date is determined by the sequence of events preceeding it
and is not just arbitrarily set. Put another way, the project end date is a
consequence, not a cause.

 

[G]

Don

Your suggestion works great. I think this should be posted on the knowledge
base