Duration confusing

[maarkr]

I thought I was doing OK on putting my project in until....
I have a summary task that shows 57 months to complete.
It has four subtasks...one with two tasks of 5 mos and 1
mo, and the other subtasks for 6 mos and 1 month each.
They all have a start no earlier than date, but if input a
start date for the tasks, it automatically adds 3 weeks
for the finish date. Can this be simply explained...I'm
currently going thru a Que book on project but I'm not
very far yet.

 

[Steve House]

It's hard to say what's going on from the information you give. Generally
you should avoid Start No Earlier Than dates, letting Project calculate the
dates tasks should be started. After all, that's it's job - creating the
schedule for you, not just illustrating one you've come up with on your own.
Another issue is it seems like your tasks are incredible long! I don't know
what industry you're in but in many cases a rule of thumb that works well is
the 8/80 Rule - tasks should be between 8 and 80 hours in duration each. If
less than 8 you're trying to micromanage excessively and if more than 80
you're lumping a number of work packages under one task and they really
should be tracked individually.

What do you mean by "they have a start no earlier date but when I input a
start date ..."? Usually inputting a start date is how a SNE happens in the
first place. Do you mean you're pustting in different start date somewhere?
Where?