Flexible duration task

[Adam]

Hi,

I'm new to Project (2003) and still trying to learn how to set up links and
constraints to make my project flexible and automatically react to changes in
start dates, milestones, etc.

I have several tasks that are supposed to begin after a specific date (I
used a finish-to-start link to tie them to this milestone) and continue up
until a milestone that marks the completion of the project The project has
an undefined completion date - maybe 6 months from the start, maybe 24
months, it will change. I can use a start-to-finish link to cause the tasks
to run up until the "finish" milestone, but the duration of these tasks
doesn't seem to respond to changes in the project duration. For instance, if
I change the time between start and finish milestones from 6 to 24 months,
nothing happens to the duration of these tasks.

Is there a way to set the duration to be an independent variable? Am I
missing something about the way Project is supposed to work? Thanks!

 

[JulieS]

Hello Adam,

To have task durations automatically expand/contract and fill the space
between your milestone and project finish, you'll want to create hammock
tasks. See FAQ # 19 at
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Be careful about overuse of hammock tasks. They rely on paste links
which are frequently causes of corruption and errors in project files.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project