How do I add slack to a task? Microsoft Project |
- How do I add slack to a task?
- outline a project by using intentions
- creating a todo list withh a date range
- xlVBAlignTop etc. Stopped Being Recognized
- Project Characterised by Major Ambiguity and Uncertainty
- Earned value and project management deliverables
- MSP Scheduling durations
- How can duration be set for calendar days?
- Export wizard truncates to 2 decimals, and I really need to retai.
- Email Status Requests in Project 2003 (w/o posting to the server)
| 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 |
| 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: |
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