Start to Finish issue

[inay]

Hi. I'm pretty sure I understand the Start to Finish relationship. I've
used it in the schedule. Now logically I would think that if I changed the
end date for the predecessor task this should push out the date for the
successor but this is not happening. Have I got it wrong?

 

[David Capeci]

This is a very interesting question. When you setup a task as a predecessor
with a start to finish relationship to a successor and then go in and change
the finish date, what you will see in MS Project 2003 is a warning indicating
that you are about to set a constraint on the predecessor task to finish no
earlier than the date you moved it to which may be why it is not completing
what you expect to happen. MS Project will accept that change in finish date
to the predecessor but not until you explicity select that this is what you
intended. If you are simply trying to reflect the successor task moving out
to a certain date, you can handle in one of two other ways. First you can
change the predecessor's start date to reflect the pushed out date and then
the finish date will change accordingly for the predecessor and the
successor. If the task has already started then you can add a delay or
"split" to the task to reflect the pushed out date in the predecessor task
which will again be reflected in the successor task. Let me know if this
helps.

 

[JackD]

You do have it wrong. The start of the predecessor task is what drives the
finish of the successor task.
Using a Finish to Start relationship is much more common and would be have
the way you expect.

-Jack
http://zo-d.com/blog/ - Project management blog
http://masamiki.com/Project Microsoft Project website.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

How have you set the dates for the predecessor task and how are you changing
its end date? A "start-to-finish" link says that the START of the
predecessor determines the FINISH of the successor. Thus the only thing
that will change to end of the successor is some operation that changes the
start of the predecessor. Changing just the end of the predecessor WITHOUT
changing its start, perhaps by making its duration longer or some such, will
have no effect on the successor task linked from it SF.