Project time counting back from the project end date

[reallux]

I have tasks that are not that important but still need to be in the project
timeline. These are tasks beyond the project end date further in the future.
I want to use the project count back feature in the project time scale (-5,
-4, -3 months from end date) from the project end date but is it using the
end date of the not important tasks.

Now it looks like we have 2 months of extra time which we do not have

Can I overcome this problem? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi reallux ,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I don't think this is possible as the project end date is the date when the
last task finishes. If you add tasks beyond this date, then Project will
calculate a new end date.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials

 

[reallux]

Hello Glen:

Thanks for the quick response. It would be nice if MS-project can count back
from any milestone in a project and not just the project end date of the taks
ending the farest in the furture.

Reallux

 

[Mike Glen]

Maybe, but that's how all project managent packages work - the end date is
the last date.

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House]

By definition a project isn't complete unless ALL the work that creates the
project deliverables has been completed. So the situation that you pose is
impossible - if those tasks are part of the project at all, the project
isn't done until they are completed and is is those tasks that define the
Project End Date. What you are presently identifying as the end date sounds
more like a project milestone to me.

If it's any consolation, it's generally considered very poor practice to
schedule backwards from a required delivery date anyway. Sure it's useful
when you're first sketching out the plan in order to see what the latest
kick-off date you might have that would finish the project on-time but when
it comes to building the plan for real it's usually a very good idea to set
a kick-off date well in advance of that latest possible start date and plan
forward from that date. The reason I say that is that when you schedule
backwards from some date, Project sets all the tasks to start As LAte As
Possible. The means that is anything happens to delay a task, you're
virtually guaranteed that you'll blow through the required finish date and
come in late. Since the one thing you can positively count on in your
project is that SOMETHING will go wrong at some point with at least one task
in the plan, planning backwards from the deadline essentially insures you'll
never be able to finish your projects on schedule.