moving a set point

[BAE Ben]

I am trying to plan a project in MSP 2003 and I want all tasks to revolve
around a milestone.

This milestone has predessors and sucsessors. I want to drag the milestone
to the left and right and have all connected tasks move with it keeping the
same number of days between the tasks both in front and behind.

i.e. the milestone has a task that has to happen 2 weeks before and some
that have to happen 6 weeks. Also there are tasks that have to happen 3 weeks
after etc etc.

I have around 30 predessors and 25 sucsessors, i.e. a lot of dependances.

What is the easiest way to do this?

Many thanks for the help

Ben

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Sounds like you need both SF and FS dependencies.

Create the Milestone. We'll call it MS.

Insert a task over the milestone. We'll call it PR1.

Set the Predecessor for PR1 to MS SF-2w. Accept any error messages which
might pop up to show that the Predecessor is scheduled for before the Project
Start.

Then whenever the Milestone moves, the Predecessor task will move.


- Andrew Lavinsky
Blog: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/epm

 

[Steve House]

"Predecessor" does not mean "comes before" and "successor" does not mean
"comes after." Rather, predecessor means "controlling" while "successor"
means "controlled." The scheduling of prdecessors controls the scheduling
of successors. Since you want the scheduling of your milestone to control
all the other tasks, the milestone has no predecssors at all and all the
other tasks are sucessors to it, making it in control of everything and
nothing controls it. The tasks that come after the milestone are linked
from it in a finish-to-start relationship, milestone as the predecessor,
while the tasks that will come before it are ALSO successor tasks but linked
from it in a start-to-finish where the start of the predecssor controls the
finish of the successor. For the tasks that come before, the start of the
milestone controls when they need to finish by.

This sort of scheduling is bit risky and IMHO you ought to rethink your
logic. Saying I'll start something two weeks before something else implies
that I have some skills at clairvoyance and can reliably know ahead of time
exactly when the thing will happen. Milestones are not just arbitrarily set
dates - they actually mark instantaneous state transitions thar occur in
your project. You go from the state of not having a contract signed to the
state of having the signatures, for example. They occur when the tasks in
the project drive them to occur - their dates are a consequence, not a
cause. To say I'm going to meet with someone two weeks before the contract
is signed suggests that I can know with an absolute certainly when the
contract WILL be signed, something I actually can't know as an absolute fact
until we're sitting at the table pen in hand. Scheduling is far more
reliable when you stick to a linear logic that says you'll schedule the
contract signing 2 weeks after the meeting, with the meeting in control,
rather than saying you'll schedule the meeting 2 weeks before the signing
with the desired signing date in control.