You're on the right track. A deliverable is essentially the thing that a
task produces or creates, the task's output. It may be tangible, like a
part for a machine, a hole in the ground, or the wall of a house, or
intangible, like a concept or a plan or a decision. Summary tasks and
phases are really just "tasks" producing bigger deliverables while the
deliverables of the subtasks are the big deliverable's component parts.
Depending on the level of complexity of the work and the way you plan to
assign resources, a certain deliverable may show up in your plan as either a
summary with subtasks or just a plain task or work package. The example I
use in my classes is repainting the classroom. If the painter and his
assistant were going to come in and together box up and move the computers
out of the room, move the furniture out, remove the fixtures and whiteboards
from the wall, mix and apply the paint, etc etc, I'd probably just show it
as "paint the room" in the project plan with the painting crew assigned to
it. It's not my job to micro-manage their work and they're perfectly
capable of coordinating among themselves all the details. On the other
hand, if a crew from IT was coming in to disconnect and box up the computers
and then some labourers to move the boxes and furnishings, the union
contract requires a carpenter be brought in to do the wall fixtures, etc and
then the painter does his thing, then I'd show "paint the room" as a summary
with all those various component activities detailed out as its subtasks.
There is no single place where a deliverable is defined - indeed they might
not be defined explicitly in the task list at all. I suggest starting task
names with an action verb. The object of that verb would then be the
deliverable. "Dig hole for swimming pool" pretty well says that the work
activity is digging and the deliverable is a hole suitable for a swimming
pool. If you need to go farther than you could use the notes field or one
of the user-defined text fields to record which deliverable with which a
task is associated. The important thing is that you know what the
deliverables are and organize the tasks in such a way as to get them all
created.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
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