(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
Dear,
I have the following questions:
Should I develop each phase as a sub-project and then join them together as multiple projects?
2. There is no Task Drivers menu in MS 2010. How could I know which predecessors driven a task if it has many prececessors?
Thank!
Gary Lo
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I'm resurrecting this old thread in case Mr. Lo or the other participants are still subscribing to it. As mentioned by Mr. Patterson, Acumen Fuse seems to have been the ticket here. Now - 3.5 years later - my firm is considering sharing a tool that we originally developed for internal use but have recently re-coded to run as an MSP Add-In. BPC Logic Filter uses logic tracing to calculate and display the Driving Path for each contract completion milestone (or any other selected task in the project). It also computes Path Relative Float for non-driving predecessors (i.e. how much can any given task slip before it becomes part of the Driving Path). It has similar functionality for successors (i.e. the "Driven Path"). We are looking for more advanced MSP users to test: http://www.planningplanet.com/forums/microsoft-project/578224/logic-tracing-msp .
Regarding the other issues mentioned:
Sub-Projects are notorious for giving rise to unintended entanglements that are sometimes called "file corruption." Nevertheless if you have implemented good file management (and uniform schedule updating) processes, then I believe they offer a reasonable way to get the schedule management closer to the project management. That's better for everyone. For those who use master/subproject links, BPC Logic Filter accurately tracks logic flow forward and backward through master and subproject task relationships. This can provide nice condensed views of the key subproject interfaces and their consequences.
Finally - re. "Task Drivers," MSP 2010 Pro provides the "Task Inspector" (ribbon "Inspect Task" button) which seems virtually identical (I couldn't say for sure since we skipped over MSP 2007 in our firm.) TI offers to provide a very accurate picture of exactly what is driving a task's start date, and hyperlinks offer the ability to track this driving path backwards. Unfortunately in our early testing TI seemed to miss many drivers that were not Finish-to-Start links - that's one reason we developed our tool.
Gary,
Acumen Fuse 3.0 includes a new driving path analyzer that should help you. You can select any task and get a full forward and/or backward trace showing only those tasks that are driving the task in question. You can also select any two tasks and get a full driving path analysis showing only those tasks that are driving between the two tasks. Great for zooming in on specific tasks rather than relying on the total float value which can often be a bit meaningless if you are looking at anything other than the end of the project. Results can be in list or Gantt chart format.
Cheers
Dan.
Bo
Not sure what point you are making. If the predecessor has free float it is not a driving task by definition?
D
As far as I can remember old software such as SureTrak would show relative float not only on the predecessors pane but also on the successors pane. But these old software were wrong about float, they did not considered resource leveling float. Even today it took some time for a few "high level" software to catch up with resource leveled float and perhaps they are still wrong on their calculation of relative float by missing again the issue on resource leveling. An attempt to solve the issue on relative float was developed, an algorithm to find longest path to any activity, but the algorithm fails under resource leveling.
In order to avoid confusion, as to when displayed relative float values are correct and when not, some of the newer software opted to not include these "phantom" values. Under resource leveling the math is not that simple, especially for the relative values among all activities.
I believe an option could be to display those values on any non leveled schedule and perhaps an asterisk on resource leveld schedules as using the correct math to get these can be very intensive and of not much practical value because of how things easily complicate under resource leveling.
I believe software resource leveling is a must have, but we got to accept the mathematical complexity of it.
Yes, MSP has the feature of of finding the driving predecessor, but only that one. As Gary Lo said: "...what if the task has many predecessors...". For example say 5 predecessors. MSP would give you the one predecessor driving the task using the solution Donald and Rafael has shown, but it will not give your the respective "free" float to each of the other 4 predecessors.
This is what some other planning packages call "relative float" (Pertmaster/PRA) or "predecessor free float" (P6 as far as I recall) and when you have these values it certainly gets a lot easier to sit and plan your works, when you instantly know have much you can delay a predecesssor without delaying that specific task you're looking at. MSP doesn't provide you with these values.
Regards,
Bo
Not only driving tasks but other delay reasons as well.
Actual Start and Assignments, Leveling Delay, Constraint Type/Date, Summary Task, Predecessor Tasks, Subtasks, Calendar.
http://pmpspecialists.com/WhitePapers/PMP_Specialists_Task_Drivers.pdf
ASTA PP is good software but never underestimate the competition.
Regards,
The Rabbit and the Turtle
Mike
I don't believe you are correct on point 2. MS Project has the ability to trace driving tasks (At least MS Project 2007 does). There is a button on the tool bar that enables the user to identify the driving task. When you click on this button a pane opens on the left hand side of the screen identifying the driving task. The driving task is hyperlinked so you can follow back the entire logic chain.
D
Hi Lo,
1) Use MSP's feature of "deadlines" at the end of each phase you want a critical path for , e.g. by adding a finish milestone at the end of each sub-phase and give this milestone a "deadline"-date. You can either have the "deadline" fixed by a certain date or you can let it be "floating", i.e. the "deadline"-date moves as delays are introduced but it will still be critical. This is similar to what some other planning packages call "always critical". By choosing the "floating"-option you won't get negative floats due to the deadline-constraint (not really a constraint), but you could always use either a fixed deadline or another harder constraint somewhere else in the programme, e.g. on the overall completion date of the project.
Personally, I never use sub-projects in MSP, as I think it always creates to many problems when sending programmes back and forward between sites, headoffice, sub-contractor, Employer, etc. The folder/directory-system need to be set up exactly the same on and so on, before it works 100%.
2) No other way in MSP than doing it the hard manual way, unless you can write some VBA that can trace this for you. Here Microsoft could learn a lot from other planning packages, e.g. from Primavera Risk Analysis that deals with this "trace logic" in a very nice way.
Regards,
Bo
Perhaps you are talking about a single project with different contractual milestones, this is usually kept on the same project and the milestone constraints will keep synchronized all phase paths, some phases might be critical 100% and others will only share some activities with the overall job critical path.
Some software help you isolate the paths using multiple path functionality by identifying Longest Path to individual activities but it might fail under resource leveled projects. I am not sure but Asta PP might have this functionality.
Separating a single job into multiple subprojects have other purpose; if you have several subcontractors and are in need to send them their activities for updating and for making some changes other than just actuals and you do not want to sent them other confidential information is among one of the reasons to use subprojects, you send them the detached subproject file. Even old P3 and SureTrak had this functionality into what they called Project Groups.
If your software generates negative float using the constraints, this can make it harder for you to follow the logic, many schedulers have learned to deal with it by temporarily toggling off the constraints.
I also believe some newer software implement subprojects at the Portfolio functionality, a functionality not available in all versions as they are scalable. Under this distribution of functionality it might be that in lower end versions not even Project Groups are available. Of course on higher end versions the Portfolio functionality works better than old Project Groups.
Because our projects are small by construction industry standards and we work under the traditional single General Contractor contract type we rarely use project groups [or portfolios] at the project level. At the corporate level it always make sense to use portfolios even if no project share relationship with others and there is no single multi-project, it is always good to see the whole picture at the Corporate Level.
Keep it simple unless there is a real need.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/CH010066719.aspx
Hi Lo
Question 1 - Yes use sub projects
Question 2 - MS Project is a lightweight bit of kit - upgrade to PowerProject where this feature is a standard.
Best regards
Mike Testro
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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