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How do I add slack to a task? Microsoft Project

How do I add slack to a task? Microsoft Project

How do I add slack to a task?

Posted: 16 Jul 2005 10:45 AM PDT



Pete DeLorme wrote: 

I'm somewhere between the purists and the infidels. The methods
mentioned will add slack, but probably at some peril in most cases. I
like to create overall project slack by putting in what's called a
"buffer" in Critical Chain scheduling, "UEWS" (Unexpected Events Within
Scope) by the person that taught it to me long before there was
Critical Chain scheduling. At the end of the project, right before the
Finish milestone, put in a task called UEWS. Estimate it's duration
based on experience, level of uncertainty, etc. It's just like putting
contingency money in the budget. That's why some call it "Schedule
Contingency". Then, the name of the game is to decrease the UEWS as the
rest of the project slips, trying to finish the project before you run
out of UEWS.
Done this way, it doesn't really show up as total slack in the
schedule, but as an additional critical task at the end of the
schedule. Nonetheless, it acts as slack. Once I started doing this, I
seldom overran a schedule.
The purists might have a fit about doing this, which I've never
understood. One of the more significant goals of doing PM in the first
place is to finish on time most of the time. Any tool short of out and
out lieing that helps me bring in my projects on time is valid.
Best of luck finding what works best in your world.

outline a project by using intentions

Posted: 16 Jul 2005 08:08 AM PDT

Jan,

Yep! The supervisor may have meant or actually said INDENTIONS but it came
out of the student's mouth as INTENTIONS (asked him to repeat it a couple of
times) - at any rate we covered indentions as well - both indenting and
outdenting. Thanks for the suggestion.

Marie

"Jan De Messemaeker" wrote:
 

creating a todo list withh a date range

Posted: 15 Jul 2005 12:05 PM PDT

Ok, I figured out how I think you're SUPPOSED to
generate a report with a date range, but it doesn't work.
I do:
view>reports>assignments>who does what>edit>
filter>date range>select>show tasks that start or
finish after 7/20/2005>and before 9/1/2005

The results are all over the board. I'm showm tons
of tasks that have start/finish dates both back in May
that are marked 100% complete. Do I not understand
something here? Thanks!


"RobR" <com> wrote in message
news:%23jtI%phx.gbl... 

xlVBAlignTop etc. Stopped Being Recognized

Posted: 15 Jul 2005 10:31 AM PDT

That was it. Thanks!
- Will

"Jan De Messemaeker" wrote:
 

Project Characterised by Major Ambiguity and Uncertainty

Posted: 15 Jul 2005 09:28 AM PDT

I've got a problem with that approach in that you have no way of knowing if
you're on the right track or not viz-a-viz your organization's buiness
objectives and strategy. It almost seems like you're trying to say you
define the project's outcomes on how much work you can afford to devote to
new development instead of deciding what you should develop and whether it
fits into the company's long term strategy. Work drives the schedule when
you know what it is you want toi accomplish. But it sounds like you're
saying "we can afford to do 500 hours of work, what could we do with it?"
letting the affordable work define the objective and calling that a project.
HOW to accomplish an objective may very well be a moving target in
innovative endeavors, that's why a phased apporach to scheduling can be a
good idea. But it seems to me that clearly defining the objective itself -
in concrete, quantifiable, objective terms - and making a go/no-go decision
based on whether it contributes to the long term strategy of the firm simply
must be a prelude to anthing else. (Just because you can do something it
doesn't mean you should do it.)
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


"Paul" <com> wrote in message
news:db8o84$ob3$dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com... 

Earned value and project management deliverables

Posted: 15 Jul 2005 06:25 AM PDT

In article <com>,
Jan M. <microsoft.com> wrote:
Jan,
Responses to your followup questions are as follows: 
You're welcome 
Month by month LOE tasks may or may not be considered "recurring". It's
kind of a matter of interpretation. Let's say the project needs a PM for
all of 2005 (i.e. Jan 3 through Dec 30). This particular PM effort has
no specific deliverables so the whole year"s effort is considered LOE. I
would set up a series of tasks, one each month, with perhaps the Task
Names of: "Perform PM support for Jan", "Perform PM support for Feb",
etc. Are those recurring tasks, yeah, probably so. Whether the tasks are
planned using the recurring task function of Project or whether they are
entered discretely is a matter of user choice. 
After thinking more about my answer on this, LOE does NOT necessarily
need to be level loaded. Normally it would be but perhaps there is more
intensive LOE activity toward the beginning or end of a month and less
in the middle. In this case, a contour could be applied but I'm not sure
that it matters a whole lot because if the task is LOE, taking "credit"
is automatic and since status is on a monthly basis, it doesn't really
matter that more hours were actually accrued in the first and last week
of the month. Another scenario could however be that on a particular
project there is more PM activity during certain months (e.g. preparing
for quarterly reviews). In that case, resource loading need not be the
same for all months in the year. Each month is loaded flat but months
are not loaded the same. 
Once again I was a little to hasty in my response. For LOE tasks, SPI is
guaranteed to always be "1", but CPI is not. (We actually had a case
where one of our support activities had a ballooning positive CPI. Their
support was planned as LOE but no one actually worked on the task. It
wasn't discovered for a few months because their piece of the program
was overshadowed by activities with much larger budgets. Obviously we
had to re-think and re-plan their whole support activity in light of the
fact that a significant portion of their "budget" had been "blown").

For LOE tasks SPI is guaranteed to be "1" because "credit" is given for
simply existing (e.g. the PM was at work and therefore supported the
program this month), hence BCWP is always equal to BCWS. In our system,
all performers, except those under LOE, reported status. Tasks covered
by LOE were automatically credited by the system - no user statusing
required.

Hopefully, this clarifies some things.

John
Project MVP 

MSP Scheduling durations

Posted: 15 Jul 2005 01:44 AM PDT

The duration of a task is the number of working time units according to the
calendar governing the task between start and finish. Operative werm there
is "working time units". If a fulltime employee who is scheduled for 8
hours a day is assigned a task tarting Mon at 8 and ending Mon at 5, he'll
be on that task for 8 of his working time hours between start and end. If a
part-time employee who is scheduled for 4 hours a day works on a task that
starts Mon at 8am and ends Tue at 5pm, he too is on that task for 8 of his
working time hours. The durations of the two tasks are both identical - 8
hours are required to produce the deliverable - even though their elapsed
times are very different.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

"RB" <co.uk> wrote in message
news:googlegroups.com... 

How can duration be set for calendar days?

Posted: 14 Jul 2005 04:41 PM PDT

Julie has given you a good workaround to dispay task elapsed times. By al
means use it for reports, etc, if that's what more senior management wants
to see but when developing the actual plan try to resist the temptation to
use elapsed time in lieu of duration. Duration is that portion of the
elapsed time where work can take place Assuming the standard calendar,
that's why the duratiuon of a task beginning Wednesday and ending the
following Tuesday is 5 days and not 7. According to the calendar no work
will happen, no progress achieved on Sat or Sun. So when you look at a task
that can begin Monday and will take 10 days of work to complete, your finish
date will be 10 working days plus how ever many nonworking days intervene
down the line. To develop an accurate schedule you really have to drop the
dates where work doesn't happen from the overall elapsed time.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


"mrcog" <microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Export wizard truncates to 2 decimals, and I really need to retai.

Posted: 14 Jul 2005 11:56 AM PDT

Multiply by 1000.

--
-Jack ... For Microsoft Project information and macro examples visit
http://masamiki.com/project
or http://zo-d.com/blog/index.html
..
"Hulder-One" <microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:com... 
unique 
two 
level 
numeric 
too 

Email Status Requests in Project 2003 (w/o posting to the server)

Posted: 14 Jul 2005 10:15 AM PDT


You're welcome, Michelle :-)

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP


Michelle Moulliet wrote: