Set a start AND end date for a project?

[ranjan.banerji]

Hey, I'm beating my head against a wall trying to do this, and it can't
be so uncommon a problem that Project can't solve it.

Project lets me set a start date, or an end date, but not both. But
frequently I get a project that's already got an end date (client
driven) and a start date (usually yesterday =/ ). How should I work
that? What I want is for Project to say, OK, if you want to do these
tasks in this timeframe, you will overbook the assigned resources by
this amount. If I could get "this amount", then I can go to the client
and say hey, your resources have to be available for 100-200 hours a
week for these weeks, and they can go hire contractors or whatever to
maintain that workload.

But Project doesn't seem to be able to do this. I enter in a start
date, then enter in a Must Finish Before constraint date, and it warns
me, and I say do it anyway, and it reschedules THAT ONE TASK. I can't
do that for 1200 tasks.

Help!

Ranjan

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Ranjan,

You set a fixed end date by adding a zero-duration task with a must start on
constraint on the desired end date.

BUT the result will NOT be what you look for. When you will start linking
your other tasks to this end task and assign resources (yes YOU assign
resources), and when then there is an overrun Project will tell you you
can't do within the set time limit and you will have the piossibility to add
resoruces to the tasks to solve it.

Indeed, on individual tasks adding resources shortens duration and there
even is a parameter allowing you to recalculate resoruce units by changing
the duration ("Fixed Work") but that doesn't work on a Project as a whole.
HTH

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

A project mathematically simply cannot have a fixed beginning date AND a
fixed ending date. It may, indeed usually DOES, have a date by which it
needs to end but that's not the same thing as the end date. That's the
TARGET for the end date. The project end date itself is that date on which
the last bit of work is done and the project deliverable is completed. That
event may occur before, on, or after the target end date but it occurs
whenever it occurs - Mother Nature and the laws of physics don't care
whether you're on time or late, only the bossand the client cares about that
<grin>. Project's job is to look at the physical work to be done and the
way you deploy your assets to do it and predict when the physical end is
likely to occur so you can create a workable plan that meets the boss's
objectives. When you schedule from the start date forward, you input the
date you will start work and the structure of the work itself, including
your best estimate of the duration of each component task. Project then
computes when the project would end IF you structured the work and assigned
the resources the way you have proposed. If it meets or is better than your
required target, great. If it's not, you don't just designate the date you
want, you must actually revise the organization of the work and/or the
assignment of the resources in order to materially change the computed
schedule so that it finishes where it should.

All of your 1200 tasks should lead up to a finish milestone. Every task in
the project should be linked to a successor except for that one milestone -
if there's no actual activity that is the successor to a given task, the
finish milestone is its successor. You set a deadline on the finish that is
the client's required date. After building your task list, linking them,
and assigning resources to them, you compare the computed scheduled finish
with the deadline for the finish and if necessary iteratively revise the
plan until it's computed to finish on or before the deadline.