Triggering the Schedule by external dates

[Michael.Tarnowski]

Hi community,

I have a complex schedule with a lot of project-internal milestones
(to draw tasks together) - and I have customer agreed contractual
milestones with fixed calendar dates.
All customer agreed contractual milestones are on top of my task list.
Now I want to align some internal milestones with the external ones:
internal MS_1 has to be finished at contractual MS_A, or shifting of
MS_A affects MS_1.
What kind of task dependency should I use best?

Thanx and have a nice day
Michael

 

[Steve House]

A milestone is an event, something happens. It's not a date, per se, but
rather the thing that happens on or by the date in question. Of course, you
may have deadlines that are very, very improtant to meet by certain dates
and those deadline dates may well be engraved in granite. Such are your
"customer agreed contractual milestones with fixed calendar date."
Something must happen (milestone event) by a certain date (contractually
agreed). IMHO, Project is created to just document what you already know,
those dates, on a pretty graphic. Rather it is a tool to help you figure
out how to organizae the workflow that will meet those dates. Rather than
fixing the milestones to those dates, set the dates into the Deadline field
for the milestones and let Project freely calculate the date where the
current workflow (task durations, links, resource assignments) will place
those milestones. By comparing the calculated dates with the deadline dates
you can determine if your proposed workflow is going to result in a
successful project or not. If it doesn't, don't force the milestones into
compliance with the contract dates by over-riding the calculations and
setting them to fixed dates - instead, redo the workflow until the
calculated dates fall into the proper place. The idea is to use the tool to
help you "what-if" in order to design a successful project plan.

HTH

 

[Jim Aksel [MVP]]

We have Givers and Receivers at teh top of our schedules. If your internal
milestone produces a "Giver" then follow Steves advice and put a deadline on
the giver milestones equal to the reqired contract date. You r milestone
"deep down in the schedule" drives the "Giver" milestone at teh top with a
FS releationship.

If your milestone is a "Receiver" meaning someone delivers something to you
so you can start work on something, then the receiver has a deadline and a
"Start No Earlier Than" date constraint. So, you supplier aggrees to
deliver an item no leater than September 1st and that allows you to start
task number 123. Link 123 to your Receiver milestones with a FS. If your
receiver information from your supplier they will deliver on September 10th,
then your Receiver gets flagged with a red diamond (it missed the deadline),
and your task 123 is pushed to the right because of the new date.

If you have a way to link between the schedules, then the receiver does not
geta SNET constraint, you link it to the external file with a FS.

Jim Aksel, MVP

 

[Steve House]

...IMHO, Project is created to just document what you already know, those
dates, on a pretty graphic. ...

Just noticed typo - this sentence should have read "...Project is NOT
created to just document..."


SJH

 

[Michael.Tarnowski]

Just noticed typo - this sentence should have read "...Project is NOT
created to just document..."

SJH

Steve, Jim,
thanks for your enlighting tips.
I like the notion of "giver" and "receiver". Put in this terminology,
the milestones on top of my schedule ("the external/contracted one")
are the givers, and the schedule internal ones are the receiver.
Do I understand you both correct:

If your internal milestone produces a
"Giver" then follow Steves advice and
put a deadline on the giver milestones
equal to the reqired contract date.

Deadline-Constraint by OLE-linking end of giver date to the receiver
date?


If the milestone

"deep down in the schedule" drives the "Giver" milestone at teh top

using a FS releationship where Giver (on top) is successor.

Did I understood you correct?
Thanx & have a nice day
Michael