Why you should avoid linking summary tasks Recommended reading on Microsoft Project Practice Standard for Scheduling.Scheduling problems - How to resolve a common scheduling problems in MS Project.How to avoid the - Top 10 Microsoft Project Mistakes.How to create a PDF of your project plan - MS Project 2010 to pdf.Outlook tasks - How to import Outlook tasks into MS Project.Hyperlinks - How to create hyperlinks in MS Project. Highlight tasks - This step by step guide shows how to highlight particular tasks in MS Project.Filters - How to create a custom filter in MS Project.Filters - How to filter your plan by certain tasks or resources.Critical Path - Viewing the Critical Path - video tutorial.Create constraints - How to create project constraints.Constraints part 2 - Common mistakes in using constraints.Constraints part 1 - How to use MS Project constraints.Project Calendars - Non-working time - enter UK holidays into MS Project calendars.Read more guides on using Microsoft Project References for summary tasks Practice Standard for Scheduling – Second Edition, 2011, Project Management Institute, Pennsylvania, pg 38. This article gives a step by step guide to creating custom filters including a filter to find linked summary tasks. How to find linked summary tasks in MS Project You can find linked summary tasks in MS Project by creating a custom filter that finds summary tasks which also have predecessors. SummaryLinking summary tasks can have some negative consequences for planning, so while MS Project allows it, you may decide to avoid linking them altogether. In the illustration above MS Project prevents a link between Task C.2 to Task C.1 as it would create a circular relationship. If the successor of Summary Task 1 is Summary Task 2, then activities under Summary Task 2 can’t have a successor activity under Summary Task 1. Linking summary tasks can result in the same warning message. This warning message notifies the planner of a circular relationship. Task C cannot link back to Task A as a successor task. Task C.Task A’s successor is Task B and Task B’s successor is Task C.MS Project prevents links between activities that would create circular logic. Linked summary tasks may cause circular logic warning messages in MS Project Here is the Resource Usage view from the more efficient plan. When the links are removed from the summary tasks the developers can move from one build to the next with minimal downtime. The Resource Usage view below clearly shows the down time. You have probably already spotted that when summary tasks were used to link the modules in the example above, Developer's 1 and 2 had periods of down time. Linking summary tasks can lead to bench time Of course there might be resource constraints that prevent this approach, but MS Project resource calendars should be used to reflect the Developers availability rather than activity links. Removing the logic from the summary activity enables the project planner to identify these efficiencies see below.īy planning for the Developers to move straight from one build to another the project delivery time could be reduced from 5 to 4 weeks. This would reduce the time between builds and the overall plan timescale. However, it is likely that the summary task links are causing an error in logic and the developer could actually move straight onto Build section 2.1. Because of the links between the summary tasks there is a gap between section 1.1 and the developer's next task Build section 2.1 completing in week 3. Developer 1 is completing the Build of section 1.1 in week 1. Summary task links can produce errors in logic often artificially extending the planĬonsider the example below. In this example links between summary tasks turn the Gantt view in to a complex spaghetti junction of dependencies. In fact both groups of tasks are linked to Test modules via an overarching summary task appearing much earlier in the plan. The System test tasks appear to be ‘abandoned’ floating on the chart with no obvious successor. In the example below the tasks under Module 3 and 4 appear not to be linked to the activities under Test modules. Google Sheets for Project Management - Add Task Description
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