slack overview

[swell estimator]

Can someone refer me to a comprehensive description of slack? I don't
understand how a task, 3 days duration can have slack of 133 days, when
it's hemmed in by its dependencies, e.g. a task with a predecessor that
finishes 2 days before and a 2-day successor that will begin when the present
task finishes.

I've had to go at slack as a means to understand why a critical path is not
showing.

Thank you for helping

 

[Rod Gill]

Total Slack is the usual one to look at. It is calculated as the amount of
time you can delay a task and all its successors, without affecting the
finish date of the project.

You may have a task near the end date of your schedule that has a date
constraint on it. Start by selecting all tasks, press Shift+F2 for Task
Information, Advanced tab then set constraint to as soon as possible. Now
all tasks will have lost any constraint so look at the total slack now.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Jim Aksel]

Swell - I beg to differ. Both Jan and I offered to review your schedule if
you e-mailed it to either of us. Nothing has been received. Sorry, I an
unable to assist on Firday 24 OCT 2008, I am in route to Phoenix, AZ, USA.

Might I sugest you search the help for the following terms:

Total Slack: the amount of time a task's finish date can be delayed without
delaying the project's finish date.

Free Slack: the amount of time that a task can be delayed without delaying
any successor tasks. If the task has no successors, free slack is the amount
of time that a task can be delayed without delaying the entire project's
finish date.

Start Slack: the duration between the Early Start and Late Start dates. The
smaller of the start slack and finish slack amounts determines the amount of
free slack available, that is, the amount of time a task can be delayed
without affecting the start date of a successor task or the project finish
date.

Finish Slack: the duration between the Early Finish and Late Finish dates.
The smaller of the finish slack and start slack amounts determines the amount
of free slack available, that is, the amount of time a task can be delayed
without affecting the start date of a successor task or the project finish
date.

For any of this to make sense, it is assumed your file has successors on
evey detail (non-summary) task that are FS to some other task. Those that do
not have a logical successor are tied to a finish milestone as FS. I also
assunme all non-summary tasks have a FS pred.

We are truly here to help. Please post back.

Jim Aksel, MVP
Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Swell,

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #1 and the reference to the attached Network
Analysis where slack is explained, at this site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc
or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP