Floating Durations for a Task

[Carl Gibson]

I have 3 tasks - A,B, and C.
The duration of Task B should not be fixed. Instead, I
would like Task B to begin when Task A begins. Also, I
would like Task B to end when Task C ends. I have
specified hard dates for Tasks A (start) & C (end).
If I change the start date of Task A or the end of Task C,
I would like to Task B to adjust its duration
automatically.
For Task B, I have set Predecessors to the following:
Task A - Finish to Start
Task C - Finish to Finish
Unfortunately, Task B will not adjust its duration. It
will honor its predecessor constraint to Task A, but not
Task C.
How do I make the duration of Task B adjust automatically?
Thanks.

 

[Sean]

Carl:

Here's a kb article on creating hammock tasks.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;141733

Hope this helps!

 

[Steve House]

I think you're mis-interpreting what Project is for. You don't tell it the
schedule you want. It tells you the schedule you can have. If task B would
start when task A finishes and end when task C ends, that should be driven
by some physical requirement of the deliverables and not the desire to have
the schedule track some arbitary idea of what the schedule should look like.
Not saying the situation you're trying to model won't ever occur, but when
you say you've specified "hard start dates for A and end dates for C" it
sounds like you're trying to force the schedule into some preconceived idea
of what it should be instead of trying to discover what it really will be,
based on what needs to be done and the assets at your disposal to accomplish
it.