help on cross project dependencies

L

L8rdays

Hi, MSPS 2007, all latest updates

I have a portfollio of projects that have interdependencies. Some projects
have many projects that need to link to several tasks within a project.

Delima is: Different project owners and we only allow read/write for owner
of project.

To manage deliverables and task items especially in some projects is a huge
amount of double work.

One of the projects that have many other projects that need to link is build
out of TR rooms. We have 287. The other projects plan care about varing
stage of doneness to implement their tasks.

Looking for best practice for linking this type of requirement with our
given constraints.

The idea I have was to build a basic clone project since as an admin I have
read/write to all projects. Build my depencies back to the original project.
Then give the other PM's read/write access to my project plan so they can
link to it. Then when the original plan is updated and publish, I publish
and update my clone and it filters on down the line.

I would appreciate any and all feedback about the positive and negatives of
doing this and also if anyone has any other ideas.
 
S

Sean Hanson

You may want to look at the new feature in 2007 for Deliverables as this
creates a WSS list that can maintain these interdepencies.

Optionally, you may maintain a Master Give Get Schedule that holds the
Milestones between the projects and give PM's access to your schedule, this
requires that you open your master, create milestones, insert the two
schedules, make links to and from the milestones, save baseline, close and
save schedules. Thus you can actually then see when the driver schedule
impacts the milestones positively or negatively with the variances.
--
Sean Hanson

http://www.randsmanagement.com
Mass Resource Tool for 2007
Project Server 2007 Archive Tool
2007 ULS Log Reporting
SRS Report Packs
 
L

L8rdays

Thank you for your response Sean.

Unless I am missing somethign about Deliverables, the PM would have to
create these deliverables in WSS and maintain and update the list here as
well as his tasks in Project so I don't see the advantage. (Ahhh.. One point
I may not of made real clear .... My ugliest project plan that I'm concerned
about the dependencies just about every task (very few exceptions) will be a
deliverable item and the project will have at least 1700 tasks.) Thus why I
don't want to do both deliverables and Project Plan task maintaining. The
few exceptions are the milestones that shows all deliverables for a given
room are complete.

Definately food to think about. Please do let me know if I'm missing the
mark on how deliverables work.

Thanks!
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

L8rdays --

Allow me to add my "two cents worth" to this thread. Your security settings
in Project Server 2007 conflict with your project management needs. If you
need cross-project dependencies in your organization because of
interdependent projects managed by different project managers, then you have
to open up your security settings and allow every PM Read/Write access to
all projects. Hope this helps.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz

L8rdays:

The deliverable linking capability was deliberately not designed as a hard
link that pushes dates, such as using cross project dependency links. These
were specifically added to satisfy people who don't want the date push.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com
 
L

L8rdays

Dale & Gary,

Thank you both for your responses.
Gary, I do understand that deliverables will not impact the dates in linked
tasks, and that is a good thing. My question is one of clarification,
Deliverables would have to be a separate list of items that would have to be
updated and maintained, just as the tasks in the project plan would, correct?
(No way to say make task items 1 - 1000 as deliverables and update
deliverables when I update the task. (Don't worry, I don't think so and it
wouldn't make sense because it is not logical projectmanagment thinking))

Dale - I agree the security conflicts with the need for dependencies, but
since management won't bend on either, is my idea of creating a duplicate
project for at least this major project and link each line back to the real
projects task items and give everyone access to my dup project which they can
link to. A flawed idea. (Outside the fact that it seems dumb to have to
have two exact projects with the same info.) I am assuming that if I do
this, that if I open up and republish my project weekly, it will get any
updates from the other project that may have occurred. Is my assumption
correct?

Thanks everyone!
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

L8rdays --

In my opinion, I think your management's decision on this issue is
counter-productive. If your organization's security environment is not
working, based on their decision, then they need to change their decision.
OK, enough beating on your bosses!

I strongly disagree with your alternate plan as well. I think your
alternate plan would be extremely labor intensive and counter-productive as
well. You are going to waste a lot of time on this, my friend. If you want
to quote me to your bosses, please feel free to do so. :)
 
L

L8rdays

All,

Thanks for your input and feedback.

Dale - to stop beating up on my bosses and decisions here, I had a great
thought, why don't you hire me, give me little to do, pay me very well and as
an added benefit I will work from my home office so you won't have that
additional overhead!?

Deal? :)

:) Have a great weekend everyone.

And thanks to all who provide direction on this site! The information is
invaluable!!!
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

L8rdays --

You are more than welcome for the help, my friend. In the world of bosses,
there are many who are idiots. On the other hand, I am fortunate to have
the best boss a guy could get (Gary Chefetz). He is a smart businssman with
a vision. He holds all of us to high standards, and expects nothing less of
himself. He is impeccably honest and truthful always. I consider him a
friend. We all should be so lucky! :)
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Gary --

I was hoping you would see this post. Now, about that raise I was asking
for... :)
 

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