Working from "End Date"

[Maxime Maugeais]

Good day,

I work for in a training establishment and I want to use Project to set up a
list of task that need to be accomplished every time prior a course starting.

It's basically a checklist to ensure that everything is done before a course
starts. Some tasks need to be done 3 months prior others, 1 day prior.

So I would like for an instructor to be able to open a MS Project file,
enter the date that the course starts, and that all the tasks be reschedules
based on that date.

Can I do this?

Many thanks.

Maxime

 

[JackD]

Yes, it should be possible.
The two keys to doing this are
1) Go to the Project Menu / Select Project Information and set the "Schedule
from" option to be Project Finish Date and set the finish date to your
required date.
2) Make sure that there are no constraints or hard dates set in the
schedule. To ensure this, only enter duration of tasks and dependencies.

 

[Maxime Maugeais]

I'll give that a try.

It makes a lot of sense.

Thanks for your help.

Max

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Jack has told you how but there're a couple of things you should be aware of
before actually doing it the way you propose. The most important is that
scheduling from a required finish date backwards puts all the tasks as late
as possible in the schedule. That's fine as long as nothing ever gets
delayed but in the real world how often does that actually happen? Since
the tasks are already scheduled as late as they possibly could be to finish
up before the required date, ANY delay in completion of any one of them will
blow the schedule and you won't meet the required deadline date. While
scheduling backwards is ok as an academic exercise in the initial part of
the planning to help you figure out the minimum time that might be required,
you're far better off picking a date ahead of the last possible start date
and creating the actual work schedule from that date forward so that you
have a "cushion" at the end to absorb the inevitable glitches and delays
without blowing past the required class start date. As an instructor myself
I can attest it is extremely embarassing to have to explain to a classroom
full of students that the courseware didn't make it in on time and we'll
have to mail it to them when it arrives.

 

[Melissa Marsh]

Good day,

I work for in a training establishment and I want to use Project to set up a
list of task that need to be accomplished every time prior a course starting.

It's basically a checklist to ensure that everything is done before a course
starts. Some tasks need to be done 3 months prior others, 1 day prior.

So I would like for an instructor to be able to open a MS Project file,
enter the date that the course starts, and that all the tasks be reschedules
based on that date.

Can I do this?

Many thanks.

Maxime

 

[Melissa Marsh]

Maxime-

I have the same situation of needing to work backwards from Annual Meeting
abstract deadline dates, and I think I may have found a work around.

I created my small (7 task) sub-project--each task linked to the next from
finish to start/as early as possble. I noted the overall duration of the
summary task--for example, 70 days. I then added a last "dummy task" of 70
days that coincides with the overall summary task start and stop date. (do
not link this task) This will be used as your slide rule against your
extraneous, inflexible deadline. I saved this file as a Project template.

Now, say your training class is scheduled for July 1, 2005, and you
sub-project has to finish on that date. Click the template to open the file,
and change the FINISH date on the last task--the dummy/slide rule task--to
July 1, 2005. The START of the dummy task will change to the date 70 days
backwards (3/28/05)--use this date to revise your very first task start
date--and now all the subsequent real task dates will shift forward,
appropriately, maintaining linking integrity, and will end at the extraneous
deadline-7/1/05-JIT. You can then cut and paste these tasks (sans the dummy
task) into a larger project file, or insert as a subproject into the larger
file.

If you need an example, please e-mail me at (e-mail address removed), and
I'll send you one.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Why are you jumping though such hoops to do this??? If you really, really
want to schedule backwards from the required finish date (discounting for
the moment that such scheduling methods are extremely unwise regardless of
how you go about it) all you have to do is go to the Project menu, Project
Information, Change the "Schedule From" field to Project Finish Date and
enter the required date in the Finish field.

Why is it unwise to schedule that way? Because all of the tasks will be
scheduled as late as they can be done and still meet the required target
finish. If any task is delayed or takes longer to do than was first
expected (and that is absolutely going to happen at least once in 99% of the
projects you do) you'll miss your deadline unless your scramble because
you're already up against the wire with your original schedule estimates.
In other words, scheduling backwards makes all the tasks critical and
removes any cushion that could otherwise absorb delays.

Scheduling from start forward doesn't mean your finish is any more flexible.
A deadline is a deadline. But scheduling from start forward allows you to
answer the question "if we organized the work this way, when would we
finish?" so you can experiment with options and figure out a tactical plan
that will actually meet your objective with some built-in contingencies to
absorb risk. If the schedule as you originally input it has you missing
your deadline, that's a valid prediction of what is going to happen when you
try to do the work according to that plan. Instead of just accepting it,
you know you need to reorganize the work, shuffle resources, etc, until you
come up with a plan that actually meets your requirements. Scheduling
backwards from required finish injects a lot of wishful thinking rather than
tactical planning into your schedule and actually makes it much less likely
that you'll be able to meet your objectives.

 

[William Steinwedell]

The only reason I have used the end date, is help show the minimum time
required to accomplish all the tasks from a known critical milestone... Sort
of backward engineering, then use the information to plan the project with
what I call risk mitigation/ and real world processes...wls...
--
William Laird Steinwedell
MBA MCSE
SPAWAR SSC-SD
Anti-Terrorism Force Protection (AT/FP)

Applied Marine Technologies, Incorporated

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

If that's the reason you're scheduling backwards, then you're doing exactly
what I consider to be the proper approach. It's telling you the latest date
you could possibly start and still make the deadline IF (and it's a big "if"
so remote that it verges on the impossible) everything goes exactly
according to plan. IMHO, your actual start date should be well ahead of
that latest possible start date and the plan you actually use to schedule
the work should be based on forward scheduling from the start date where
you're most likely to actually begin.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs