Linking numerious tasks within different groups of a project

[BZeyger]

Hello,

I am having a hard time linking numerious tasks within a project. I work for
a company that prodces manuals. Each manual has 8 steps. The first 4 steps in
each manual have a start and end time and the last 4 steps have a start and
end time. Normally the first 4 steps in all the books start at the same time.
How do I link the first four steps to the last four steps.

I know how to link one step to another. I am looking to link 4 steps to
another 4 steps.

Example:

Book_1
Read
Prepare
Write
Produce
Check
QC
Production
Package

Book_2
Read
Prepare
Write
Produce
Check
QC
Production
Package

Book_3
Read
Prepare
Write
Produce
Check
QC
Production
Package

Fist 4 steps (Read, Prepare, Write, Produce) occur at the same time.
The Last 4 steps (Check, QC, Production, Package) occur at the same time
after the frst four steps are completed

I have the layout stetup, how would I link this?

 

[Jack Dahlgren MVP]

I'd do the following:
Create a milestone for each book
Call it something like
"Start Book 1"
drag a dependency from it to all of the first 4 tasks.
Create another milestone for each book
Call it something like
"Ready for QC"
set all of the first 4 tasks as predecessors to it.
set all of the last 4 tasks as successors to it.
Consider doing the same for a final milestone for each book.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[vanita]

Hi

Since for all the manuals first four steps start together,
1. create a Start Project milestone.
2. for each manual have an overall Summary task. Within each overall Summary
task have a summary task for initial activities and a Summary task for last
four activities.
3. link first activity of each manual (Read) with the Start Project
milestone. Now also provide link between the first four activities of each
manual.
4. link fourth activity of each manual (Produce) with fifth activity (check)
of each manual. Now provide link between the last four activities of each
manual.
5. Insert in the end a Project finish milestone. Link eighth activity of
each manual with this milestone.
6. Now overall Summary task of each manual will provide the Strat and Finish
date for each manual. The summary tasks with each overall summary tasks will
provide Start and Finish dates for first and second group of activities for
each manual. Also you will have a project start date and finish date from the
milestones.

I hope it helps.
Vanita

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

While the usual practice is never to link summary tasks, in this case that's
how I'd go about setting this up. Each book is a summary task. (Actually
each book should be a separate project IMHO but I'll go with your initial
setup.) Each book has two phases, Create Book and Publish Book. The first 4
tasks are children of Create and the second 4 are children of Publish.
Create summary tasks for each phase and indent their respective children.
Link Create to Publish FS.

Do the 4 steps in each phase REALLY run in parallel? Can the author
actually start writing the manual before he's read the material and
completed the preparation for writing? That's doesn't seem right to me. It
seems more logical to me that each task within a phase would be linked to
its siblings so they form a chain, one following the other in turn, rather
than going on at all once, but I'll defer to your knowledge of your industry
in that regard ... just something to think about. But if that is really the
case you could avoid linking the phases and simply link the end of Produce
Manual to the start of Check Manual.