Late Dates incorrect after indenting under Summary Task

[Mike Glen]

Hi Steve, you're preaching the essence of what I preached to my courses over
the years before I retired. As you say, Project tells you what you can do
with the resources you apply. If the outcome is unacceptable, you adjust
the inputs until it does.

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Exactly - and the use of constraints such as MFO or MFNLT forces Project to
report a picture that looks like everything is peachy even if it really
isn't. Very skilled, experienced, and careful workers like Jan understand
just what needs to be done in terms of examining slack time etc in order to
use constraints during planning without creating a self-generated illusion
of success but it requires extreme caution to use constraints in that way
safely. Deadlines give identical slack time calculations without the
drawback of creating Gantt charts that display an illusion of success even
in the face of failure.'

 

[Tom G.]

What I suggest is that Project is ideal as a "what if" planning tool
so you CAN hit your required dates AND get all the preparatory items
done on time. If you let it, it can show you what effect changing
something in the plan will have on the final completion date. Some
changes will make it go later. Other changes will bring it forward.

I think you are completely missing my point. I understand what Project
does and how a project should be constructed to see if it's possible.
Now what I'm telling you is that I want to use it as a tool to do
backwards planning from a fixed date. You've said a lot about philosophy
and why I shouldn't but nothing about how I might be able to.

Here's the deal. If I plan a media event, it WILL take place on a fixed
date. I am not constrained by resources. There are certain tasks that
can float around. There are others that MUST happen (like issuing press
releases on fixed schedules) simply because that's how they are most
effective (like day-of, 3 days prior, 1 week prior, 2 weeks prior,
etc.).

I'm not talking about using Project as a what-if tool. I'd like to use
it as more of a graphical, timeline, master checklist, who-does-what
tool. Lots of activities happen FROM the end date. The end date doesn't
depend on or change based on what happens prior. The end (event) date
will not be missed.

Now if Project can't or doesn't work in this fashion, all someone has to
do is say -- WRONG TOOL. And point me in the direction of something that
will.

Back in my old product management days, I constructed lots of projects
using SuperProject and MS Project that were entirely based on time
estimates, feedback, actual completions, resource constraints, etc. The
end date was never a work back from date. Now I'm trying to do something
very different. If it can't be done, just say so.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Project certainly can schedule backwards from a fixed date. But you DON'T
do that by setting a MFO or MFNLT constraint on the finish milestone. In
the Project Information screen, enter the date you must be complete by and
select "schedule from completion date" in the pulldown and you have it. The
problem with that approach is that it schedules all tasks as late as
possible, thus every task in the plan is critical and the risk soars through
the roof. If any task in the plan gets delayed, you won't be ready when the
date for that event rolls around. I'm not trying to be difficult or evade
answering your question - I just have a hard time believing that there can
exist an event that has a fixed date on which it must occur AND also that
all of the tasks leading up to it are optional and the event will be able to
take place on that date regardless of whether you do all the preparatory
tasks on time or not. What if your golf tournment that is scheduled for
Labour Day weekend requires hotel accomodations for the celebrities and
VIPs - your contract with them requires they have accomodations provided.
The only hotel on town requires that the rooms be reserved and paid no later
than 01 August - if not, the hotel will refuse them rooms because someone
else is also planning a big event in town that same weekend and wants those
rooms too and the hotel will give them to whoever pays by 01 Aug. Doesn't
that mean the tournement can't happen unless you get the booking task done
on time since if you don't there'll be no accomodations for your guests?
Suppose you don't get the golf course reserved on time and a construction
crew moves in and starts replacing the greens the very weekend your
tournement is to occur? Are you saying the tournament will still be able to
happen as scheduled even if you DON'T get the rooms or courses booked on
time, or the tee-off schedule created and published or any of the thousand
other things that have to happen to have a successful tournement? Or will
you end up the day of the tournement standing in a crowd of angry
participants with egg on your face?

The simple desire or even the need to have something happen on a certain
date is not sufficient in and of itself to make it so. You have to do all
the groundwork on time or your big event won't happen, pure and simple, or
if ir does, it won't have the quality levels you require. The "what-if"
approach I'm trying to suggest is the best way I know of to insure
everything leading up to the event happens as it must in order to brong your
event in successfully. You can identify the bottlenecks and problem areas
BEFORE they occur, when there's still time to actually do something to head
them off.

 

[Tom G.]

milestone. In the Project Information screen, enter the date you
must be complete by and select "schedule from completion date" in the
pulldown and you have it. The problem with that approach is that it
schedules all tasks as late as possible, thus every task in the plan
is critical and the risk soars through the roof. If any task in the
plan gets delayed, you won't be ready when the date for that event
rolls around.

I tried that but what happened was those tasks that had to occur 3 days,
1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks before had weird things happen to them.

I'm not trying to be difficult or evade answering your
question - I just have a hard time believing that there can exist an
event that has a fixed date on which it must occur AND also that all
of the tasks leading up to it are optional and the event will be able
to take place on that date regardless of whether you do all the
preparatory tasks on time or not.

Using your methodology, how would you schedule these activities:

Event - must occur on 4th of July. Let's say it's your annual fireworks
show or something.

Press releases - must go out "day of", 3 days before, 1 week before, 2
weeks before. (Takes 4 hours to write, 2 hours to release) - these
activities cannot happen early.

Event notices - must be mailed no later than 45 days before event and no
earlier than 60 days prior. Takes 4 days to design, 5 days to print, 3
days to mail. Design can happen early. Printing can't since it's tied to
the mailing.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

In your example, if these are the only tasks in the project, then that would
be a possible exception to the "never schedule backwards" rule. But I
suspect that if we were to do this for real, there would be a lot of other
tasks that need to be done leading up to the fireworks display - secure
site, hire poyrotechnician, clear music rights, order pyrotechnics, install
sound system, etc etc. and they have to happen in order for the fireworks
show to happen. At any rate, for your outlined tasks, the first thing I
come up with is:

Schedule from project finish, 04 July 05. Durations as in your message.

1 Event Notices 15 Apr - 02 May
1.1 Design
1.2 Print, 1.1FS
1.3 Mail, 1.2FS, SNET 07/04/05, (04 July - ~60 duration days )
2 Press 1 20 Jun
2.1 Write
2.2 Release, 2.1FS
3 Press 2 27Jun
3.1 Write
3.2 Release, 3.1FS
4 Press 3 29Jun
4.1 Write
4.2 Release, 4.1FS
5 Press 4 04 July
5.1 Write
5.2 Release, 5.1FS
6 Fireworks Show (milestone) 04 July 8pm, 1.3FS45D, 2.2FS2W, 3.2FS1W,
4.2FS3D, 5.2FS4H

Numbers following task names indicate predecessors and lag times if any.
All tasks have an ALAP constraint as is the default when scheduling from
finish backwards with the exception of task 1.3 which is SNET. All dates
other than the July 4th finish date and the SNET date of the mailing task
were calculated by Project. File in email to you so you can review it.


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Had a few minutes to look at the fireworks project again and I think I've
come up with an even better way of organizing the plan. This schedule
eliminates the need for lag times and if one of the "writing" tasks starts
late or takes longer than expected, posting the actuals for the release
updates the time for the release task but does not try to push back the
fireworks or make that summary start earlier when it can't.

Schedule from project start, current date. Durations as in your message.

1 Event Notices, Deadline 20 May
1.1 Design. ALAP
1.2 Print, ALAP, 1.1FS
1.3 Mail, ALAP, 1.2FS
2 Press 1, Deadline 20 June 10am
2.1 Write, ALAP
2.2 Release, ALAP, 2.1FS
3 Press 2, Deadline 27 June 10am
3.1 Write, ALAP,
3.2 Release, ALAP, 3.1FS
4 Press 3, Deadline 30 June 10am
4.1 Write, ALAP,
4.2 Release, ALAP, 4.1FS
5 Press 4, Deadline 04 July 10am
5.1 Write, ALAP
5.2 Release, ALAP, 5.1FS
6 Fireworks Show (milestone), SNET 04 July 6pm, Deadline 04 July 8pm,
1.3FS, 2.2FS, 3.2FS, 4.2FS, 5.2FS

Numbers following task names indicate predecessors. All summary tasks are
ASAP, all performance tasks are ALAP. File in email to you so you can
review it.

 

[Tom G.]

Had a few minutes to look at the fireworks project again and I think

Thanks Steve,

I just got back from vacation so I will take a close look at what you did.