Setting up the timeline

[KT]

Hi,

The scenario is, I am creating a base template in which there is an activity
- 'Initial Meeting', with time duration of 2 hrs. During this activity there
involves a set of tasks that needs to be accomplished which do not have
specific time duration. But in Microsoft project, I am not able to set the
timeline for Initial Meeting as 2 hrs, since there are sub-tasks associated
with it having an option to set the timeline (which I don't have) instead. Is
there any other way to accomplish this? Also I have some other tasks that
don’t have timeline for example: "Refer client for training"; so when I enter
the duration as '0 Days', there appears the Milestone symbol in the Gantt
chart. Am I doing any mistake?!! Is there any other better way to do it so
that I don't get a milestone symbol there?!!! I am not sure whether I am
clear in my questions.....If you don't understand I will try to come up with
different examples...I really appreciate your help in advance.

Thanks
KT

 

[JulieD]

Hi KT

i don't understand how you can say that a task such as "Refer client for
training" isn't going to take any time ... how do you refer someone without
spending time on it? - okay, it might be as little as 2 minutes if you're
emailing them the referral, or 10 minutes if you're phoning them - but if
it's a task, ie something that needs to be done - then it has to have
duration & work associated with it?!?

as for your other question of the Initial Meeting of 2hrs, during which
other activities will get done - again these activities must take time and
what interests me is that you've decided that no matter how long these other
activities will take to do the meeting only takes 2 hours. What happens if
say, one of the other activities is filling in a an on-line form - normally
takes 10 mins, but today the internet doesn't want to work, so you've got to
involve the IT department ... etc, etc, etc ... will the meeting still only
take 2 hours? Surely, the length of the meeting is dependent upon the
efficiency and speed of the "other activities" - which is what project is
telling you if you make initial meeting a summary task. One approach that
might work for you is to have a summary task called "Initial Meeting" and
the first sub-task also called Initial Meeting with a duration of 2hrs then
link the other subtasks with a start-to-start or finish-to-finish
relationship with the Initial Meeting sub-task - but personally, i don't
think this really reflects my experience of meetings.

Cheers
JulieD

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

If you really want to see what you want to see:

- For a 0 duration task that shouldn't be a miletoen go to Task Information,
Advanced and check out "Mark Task as milestone". It will then be invisible
on the Gantt Chart (width zero, that is not very visible is it)

- Mark your meeting subjects the same way, and add two 0 tasks with a Musrt
start on constraint including the time of day you want namely "Start of
Meeting" and "End of Meeting". This can be done by typing something like
9/9/05 11:27 in the cosntraint date field.

Not the normal way to use Project, but if you want to see that, why not?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

It sounds to me like your subtasks are more on the order of an agenda for
the meeting than tasks in the sense of observable physical activities
extending over a measurable period of time. Why not just use a note
associated with the meeting task to list the agenda that needs to be
accomplished?

 

[davegb]

KT,
You might consider the possibility that you are microplanning here. I
generally avoid scheduling tasks of less than a day, occasionally a
half day. Activities of shorter durations are included in larger,
longer duration tasks as much as possible. I might even schedule an
important 2 hr meeting, like a kick-off meeting. But the meeting
agenda, as Steve suggests, is just that.
Remember that the overall schedule is an overview, to see who's doing
what and when and to make sure that the real world dependencies are
reflected. Each resource on each task should be working from checklists
of one sort or another. These could be mental checklists, if they are
experienced enough, or actual written ones, either in a daily calendar,
or often, on more complex tasks, some sort of fill in the blank form.
Be aware that the schedule is not a place to track minutiae, unless you
want to put it in Notes fields.
Let me give you an example. If a painter is going to paint a room as
part of the project, you don't list as separate tasks:
Go to hardware store
Get paint
Drive to site
Unload paint and tools
Place masking
Mix paint
Paint room
etc, etc.
You assume that the painter knows he/she has to do all these things. If
she/he doesn't, you've got much bigger problems, and the detailed
schedule probably won't help much anyway.
Each PM has to decide what level of detail is neccesary in the schedule
to monitor progress and know where the project is. More than that can
bog you down. Like so many things in PM, it's a matter of judgement,
which comes with experience. If you don't have the experience, you can
borrow some here. There are a lot of highly qualified experts here,
particularly the MVP's, who can help you along the way. Best of luck!

 

[LeslieF]

Hi Steve (and others),

I'm glad to see your response, as I've used this solution for the similar,
yet different, issue of tracking distribution or contacts (where the contacts
aren't truly resources) associated with a task.

In my case, a task might be "Distribute report" and I've created a checklist
(with checkboxes) in Word and inserted it into the Notes section. However,
when one hovers over the Notes indicator, it does not show the "picture" of
the checklist. Is there a way to show this visually, without actually opening
up the task information box?

Much thanks...L

 

[KT]

My sincere Thanks to JulieD, Jan, Steve and Davegb. I really appreciate your
valuable suggestions. I guess, now I should stop microplanning and start
listing out those activities as agendas in the note section. Again thanks for
all you help. I will come back soon with some other queries.

KT

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Building on Dave's suggestion, the logic I use to determine whether to show
a task as an activity or as a summary with subtasks under it hinges on the
way the resources are scheduled and assign. In Dave's paint th room
example, inagine we're painting a computer room with multiple workstations.
We need to disconnect and move out the workstations, move out the desks,
remove switchplates, whiteboards, and other fixtures from the walls, choose
the colour of the paint, tape windows, apply the paint, and move everything
back in after the paint dries. If the painter and his assistant are going
to do the whole thing, I'd list it in the plan as "Paint Classroom 3" with a
duration estimated for the whole deal and assign the painter and assistant
to it. OTOH, if a crew from IT has to come in to disconnest and move the
computers, then a crew of labourers to move out the furnishings, union rules
require a carpenter come in to remove the fixtures attached to the walls, a
colour psychologist is coming in to blend the perfect shade of colour for an
optimum work environment, then the painter and his assitant are to do the
painting itself, etc, etc, I'd show "Paint the Room" as a summary task with
all those activities as subtasks. The key is whether a: the activities are
distinct in nature from the others, b: the resources required for the
various activities are distinct or if the same resource does it all. The
rule of thimb is a task is the the activity perfromed by one skill set
scheduled as a unit to produce one deliverable.

 

[JulieD]

Hi Steve

"colour psychologist" ... knew i was missing someone from my schedule
BTW i use the exact same scenario when teaching ..
Cheers
JulieD