Prev: Alphabetize Enterprise Templates on MSP 2003
Next: Inserting Curtains in MS Project 2007
From: Kurt S Kurt on 11 Mar 2010 19:16
I have a project with a few long duration non-critical task which define the
ultimate duration of the entire project. However, I have a few critical
intermediate milestones which are critical. Does anyone know if there is a
way to force the critical path through specific milestones without date
constraining them?

Many Thanks.
From: Andrew Lavinsky on 11 Mar 2010 20:13
What you're doing doesn't sound like good practice. Basically, you have long
tasks which don't define the duration of the project but short tasks that do?
Sounds like you've turned Critical Path scheduling on its head.

That disclaimer aside, it sounds like your best bet is to use either the
Marked field or some custom flag field, then define the Critical Path however
you would like using those. You can then tie text formatting to the Market
field and bar chart formatting to either the flag field or the Marked field,
and calculate the Critical Path however you would like.

The challenge there would be of course that when the schedule changes,
you'll have to manually flag/unflag tasks from your CP - which kind of
defeats the point of a scheduling tool.

Another option to try is to set a Deadline on those milestones. I don't
have a copy of MS Project in front of me and haven't tried this specifically,
but that may flip them to Critical if the Deadline is on the same date as the
Milestone Start. Add the Critical and Deadline fields to your view, and try
it out.

"Kurt S" wrote:

> I have a project with a few long duration non-critical task which define the
> ultimate duration of the entire project. However, I have a few critical
> intermediate milestones which are critical. Does anyone know if there is a
> way to force the critical path through specific milestones without date
> constraining them?
>
> Many Thanks.
From: salgud on 12 Mar 2010 09:40
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:16:01 -0800, Kurt S wrote:

> I have a project with a few long duration non-critical task which define the
> ultimate duration of the entire project. However, I have a few critical
> intermediate milestones which are critical. Does anyone know if there is a
> way to force the critical path through specific milestones without date
> constraining them?
>
> Many Thanks.

You are making a fairly common mistake. You're using the term "Critical" in
it's common English definition, something very important to the success of
the project, and it's scientific definition, that it has zero Total Slack.
Your milestone may well be the most important thing in the project, but it
isn't on the Critical Path, nor should it be.

Understand that CPM scheduling is basically a tool to set priorities
between the many tasks in a project. However, there are other criteria for
setting priorities that are just as valid. So in this case, you might make
the path to your Very Important Milestone more important than the critical
path. That decision is up to the Project Team (or Project Manager if you're
not doing the "team" thing).

HTH
 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: Alphabetize Enterprise Templates on MSP 2003
Next: Inserting Curtains in MS Project 2007