How to manage a repeating set of tasks?

[Eggy]

I have a single project which addresses work at many sites - about 50. There
is a set of common tasks to perform at each site. Rather than cut & paste
the tasks as a set of sub-tasks for each site, I'd like to find a way that I
can reference them as some type of sub-project. One reason for this approach
is so that, if I need to add a new task to the set of 'common tasks', I can
make the addition in one place and have it apply to all 50 sites.

How would you recommend to do this?

Thanks,
Eggy

 

[John]

I have a single project which addresses work at many sites - about 50. There
is a set of common tasks to perform at each site. Rather than cut & paste
the tasks as a set of sub-tasks for each site, I'd like to find a way that I
can reference them as some type of sub-project. One reason for this approach
is so that, if I need to add a new task to the set of 'common tasks', I can
make the addition in one place and have it apply to all 50 sites.

How would you recommend to do this?

Thanks,
Eggy

Eggy,
Even though you may have the same set of tasks performed at each site,
there are in fact 50 separate sets of tasks. I think in your case the
best approach is to create a template file of all the common tasks. Then
use that template and customize it as a separate project for each of the
50 sites. If you need to add or remove tasks from the common set, do so
in the template. However, there is no simple way to add or delete tasks
from each site's project plan once the plan has been started. It could
be somewhat automated using VBA but a lot of thought would need to go
into the code to do that.

Although Project has the capability for inserting subprojects into
master plans, this approach is not appropriate for your scenario. Why?
Because is it highly unlikely that all projects will be exactly in sync
with regard to progress at an given point in time and with a single
subproject of common tasks, progress on those tasks would be impossible
to track for 50 separate sites.

John
Project MVP

 

[Eggy]

John,

Thanks. The info you provided helped me realize details I had overlooked.
I think I understand some of the challenges.

Suppose I wasn't using the Gantt chart for status tracking or making any
other task-specific modifications within the project; that I wasn't concerned
that certain task elements would be obliterated from time to time (for
instance, when I update the 'template'). Under those circumstances how would
you approach this problem?

Thanks Again,
Eggy

 

[John]

John,

Thanks. The info you provided helped me realize details I had overlooked.
I think I understand some of the challenges.

Suppose I wasn't using the Gantt chart for status tracking or making any
other task-specific modifications within the project; that I wasn't concerned
that certain task elements would be obliterated from time to time (for
instance, when I update the 'template'). Under those circumstances how would
you approach this problem?

Thanks Again,
Eggy

Eggy,
First, you're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

With regard to your follow-on, you have told me what you don't want to
do and quite honestly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If you
could tell me what you do want to do (i.e. your end goal), then maybe I
could help. It just may be that Project is not the application you need
to use.

John
Project MVP

 

[Eggy]

John,

It's a struggle to find a way to describe my goal in text. And I can I
understand when you say it doesn't make sense - there is too much info I'm
not able to share, and even so, a different product might be what I need.

Using Project, my approach will be to create a 'template' project, replicate
the .mpp file to create a set of several (50+) files, each with filename
representing the site, and then 'Include' those files with the master project
plan. It's a bit of an administrative burden, but has the benefit of
supporting tracking and site-level customization.

If any other ideas pop-up please let me know.

Thanks,
Eggy

 

[John]

John,

It's a struggle to find a way to describe my goal in text. And I can I
understand when you say it doesn't make sense - there is too much info I'm
not able to share, and even so, a different product might be what I need.

Using Project, my approach will be to create a 'template' project, replicate
the .mpp file to create a set of several (50+) files, each with filename
representing the site, and then 'Include' those files with the master project
plan. It's a bit of an administrative burden, but has the benefit of
supporting tracking and site-level customization.

If any other ideas pop-up please let me know.

Thanks,
Eggy

Eggy,
The reason I said it didn't make much sense is that Project is a
planning and scheduling application. You said you didn't want to use a
Gantt Chart to track anything and you weren't going to make any task
modifications, yet you want the ability to add or delete tasks from the
common group. Well, tracking the progress of a schedule plan is what
Project is all about and adding or deleting tasks is a modification to
that plan. Perhaps that puts my comment in perspective.

OK, let's address your approach. What you describe will work fine (i.e.
using the template to create 50 projects which are then inserted into a
master). However, as I said originally, once the 50 individual projects
are created you will need to manually modify each one if you want to add
or delete tasks - or make the modifications at the master level and then
save everything. You can modify the template, but that will only help
the next time you create 50, (or however many), new projects.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Steve House]

Adding a note, a "task" is not merely the name of the type of work to be
performed. It is a description of the work that will performed at a
specific time and place by a specific resource(s) leading to the creation of
a single specific deliverable. We might have "Paint Wall" occuring hundreds
of times in a project but because they are all different walls, each
occurance is a separate task, distinct from all the others.