scheduling tasks in MS Project

[Ndigitman]

I have five one day tasks in phase A, three one day tasks and two two days
tasks in phase B. Phase A is two weeks fixed duration and Phase B is three
weeks fixed duration. Each task within phase A are independent of each other
and can start in any order. Each task within phase B has to occur in
sequence starting with the first task. Understand that all of the tasks
within each phase add up to less than the duration of the phase. How can I
represent this in MS project?

 

[John]

I have five one day tasks in phase A, three one day tasks and two two days
tasks in phase B. Phase A is two weeks fixed duration and Phase B is three
weeks fixed duration. Each task within phase A are independent of each other
and can start in any order. Each task within phase B has to occur in
sequence starting with the first task. Understand that all of the tasks
within each phase add up to less than the duration of the phase. How can I
represent this in MS project?

Mdigitman,
What you want is a Fixed Duration type of task. First, go to
Tools/Options/Schedule tab and set the default task type to be "Fixed
Duration". Then enter each of the independent tasks in phase A with a 10
day duration. Yes, that's right, a 10 day duration for each task because
you said the total span of phase A is 10 days and each task may be
performed in any sequence within that 10 day period. By saying each task
in phase A is one day duration, you really mean it has 8 hours of work
content. Work and duration are NOT the same thing.

For phase B do a similar thing except link the 5 tasks in a
finish-to-start relationship and adjust the duration of each such that
they fit into the 3 week total duration for phase B. However, from the
scenario you describe, phase B has many combinations of duration for
each subtask. For example, the first task in the sequence could be given
the maximum duration, and all the remaining tasks given a duration that
just matches the work content. Or, the last task in the sequence could
be given the maximum amount of duration and the preceding tasks given
the minimum duration consistent with their work content. It all depends
on how you want to allocate the span time (i.e. duration) among the 5
tasks in phase B.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP