How can I depend a task on the outcome of a prdecessor?

[yomtov]

I am probably not phrasing it right. What I am trying to do is to have two
different tasks that depend on the outcome of the predecessor. For example
if task1 gets completed than it is followed by task2, but if it does not get
completed (usually by a predetermined time) then task3 should kick in. Or
sometimes task1 will be to decide if we should follow task2 or task3. How
can i set such a dependency?

All help is appreciated.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

yomtov --

There is no way to specify the type of dependency you describe. Hope this
helps.

 

[yomtov]

Thanks for the reply.

Question: Isn't this quite a common requirement in project management? And
if so why isn't there a way to specify this dependency? Just curious.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

yomtov --

I didn't write the software, and I don't work for Microsoft, so I cannot
speculate. Hope this helps.

 

[Jim Aksel]

What you are asking about is branched logic depending on the outcome of the
predecessor. Some percent of the time you branch to "A", the remaining
percent you branch to "B." There is no way for any software to know this
outcome in advance. It is a decision under uncertainty problem.

About the best you can do is scheule both results "A" and "B" as stand alone
islands. Once the outcome of Task1 is known (or at least appears to be
certain because of a date constraint or something), then you can establish a
link to task A or B as necessary and remove the un-needed tasks. If you
resource load both "A" and "B" along with any other associated costs you may
be over stating the total cost of your program.

Actually, this situation is farely rare.
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Jim Aksel, MVP

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