Milestone only 0 day duration?

[Kekko]

When I mark a task as a milestone MSproject reduce the duration to a
one only day.
Otherwise I have to assign some subtasks to it in order to have a
milestone with a duration elapsed.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Kekko

 

[Mark Durrenberger]

A milestone is usually a zero duration activity - funny thing is that the
PMBOK guide (A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) does not
explicitly state that milestones are zero duration. MSP considers milestones
as zero duration activities. - I suggest that if your "Milestone" has
duration then treat it like a task and at the end of the task, link a true
MS so you might have

Activity with duration -----> End of Activity (milestone)

HTH,
Mark


--
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________

The nicest thing about NOT planning is that failure
comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by
a period of worry and depression.

- Sir John Harvey-Jones

 

[davegb]

Normally, a milestone is an event, not a task. It represents a major
moment in the project. Therefore, it has no duration, cost, resource
assignments, etc. There may be 10,000 tasks and billions of dollars to
get to it, but it represents only the event. It can also mark the
beginning of something, such as a phase, or a major decision, such as
a go/no go, on a project. There are also more subtle uses, such as
"Control Point" milestones, but I won't take the time for that here.
Regardless, it has no duration.

David G. Bellamy
Bellamy Consulting

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'm afraid this simply isn't true.
When you marka task as minestone throught Task Information, Advanced,
Project does not change the duration of the task. It simply does NOT. Start
and finish do not change.
It changes the graphical representation of the task to a lozenge but that is
just the graphical one and it can be changed through Bar Styles.