producing a network of deliverbles and external dependencies

[Miles_hot]

I need to produce a network view of our products /
deliverables and the external dependencies that they
require.

Thus if I have a chain of a-b-c-d-e where "e" is a
deliverable and "a" is something delivered by an person
external to the project I need to be able to show that
relationship without the interveening tasks carried out
by the project.

Neadless to say the chains are not simple and short.

What do I need to do to be able to show this and can
anyone help me with this?

 

[davegb]

Wouldn't be the norm, but you could create the tasks and
relationships, set a flag on the ones you want to show, then filter
the network diagram to show only the ones you flagged. Of course, the
link wouldn't show.
The other possibility is to create only the tasks you want to show,
not the intervening ones, and display the network diagram, which would
then show the links.
Possibly something like Visio would work better, since you don't need
to actually schedule anything, just show the relationship between the
delivery of the input and the final output.

David G. Bellamy
Bellamy Consulting

 

[Guest]

David

Many thanks for the suggestions. The problems are
1) I need to show the links so this will not work
2) I am working from existing plans and need to be able
to show the dependencies from this - in part to prove
that the plans are good and in part to enable the project
managers to show the dependencies and their status and
how that effects their deliverables
3) I will need to run from the live plans (see 2). If I
am able to extract the information, plug it into Visio
and then display the results that is fine.

Any suggestions?

Miles

 

[davegb]

Well, you're sort of hemmed in there. You want to display a link that
doesn't actually exist, and the workarounds I suggested will show what
you want for the presentation, but aren't what you want. I admit, I'm
a bit confused. I have thought of one other possibility. You could
create the Network Diagram with all tasks linked correctly, then draw
a link from the first task to the last, then filter out the others. It
would be an extraneous link, but wouldn't normally effect anything.
I guess I'm just not clear why you can't just draw 2 boxes and an
arrow between them for the presentation, using whatever software they
like. You're trying to display a relationship which in strict
scheduling terms, doesn't exist, but you want it to show in Project
anyway. It's just not what the software is intended to do.
As far as extracting from Project and putting in Visio, that seems as
good as anything we've talked about. If you can do it, go ahead.

David G. Bellamy
Bellamy Consulting