Joe said:
I am trying to setup a new project and I'm a little stumped about how to
accomplish this. I have an event setup as a milestone, this is a must start
on date. I have many tasks that need to be completed by this date. What is
the easiest way to make sure that all of these tasks are scheduled to be
complete by the milestone date? I have more tasks than will fit in the
predecessor field.
Thanks
Joe,
First of all, using a fixed constraint (e.g. must start on) is a bad
idea. It seems like it is the right control to have, but it really
isn't. Here's why. By nature schedules are dynamic. It is extremely rare
that everything goes as planned. The best approach is to have a
dynamically linked schedule that is allowed to move as progress
dictates. Does that mean you should ignore deadlines? No. In fact,
Project has the perfect field for that data and it is called the
Deadline field. By putting your deadline date in that field, your
schedule will still float as reality dictates but a marker (little
deadline arrow) will show how the milestone of interest is moving with
respect to the desired date. By monitoring the relationship between the
deadline date marker and the current schedule date of the milestone, you
can take action as necessary to make sure the milestone doesn't stay
beyond the deadline. For more information on the Deadline field, check
the Project help file.
WIth regard to having more tasks than will fit in the Predecessor field.
Actually that can't happen because the Predecessor field will hold more
values than will be displayed - there is no limit on the number of
predecessors per task but the Predecessor field will only DISPLAY 256
characters. However, if you really have that many predecessors linked to
your milestone, it tells me you either have a really large project
(might be possible), or you are not really showing logical network links
between tasks. It is very rare that a gazillion tasks have a milestone
as their only successor. I suggest you review you schedule logic. Unless
your project is very unusual, you will probably have only a few tasks,
(the end task of groups of tasks), that in fact drive the milestone.
Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP
