Task Duration Changes Automatically

[jncunliffe]

Hi,

Maybe easy, may be impossible but if I have an overhead task, say 'Management Activities', that runs from a set date until the project completion, identified my a milestone, how can I get the duration of this task to in/decrease AUTOMATICALLY as the milestone moves right or left?

Thanks,

Jon C

 

[PDQBach]

This is called a hammock task. I went looking for the answer I wrote some time ago about using them. Here's one thread you should look at.

In short: yeah, you can do it; but for the amount of effort it is to maintain, you're probably better off manually adjusting several tasks rather than having the schedule do it for you "auto-magically.

 

[jncunliffe]

Is see what you mean...... Maybe, one day, MS may add this as a painless feature.

Thanks for your help.

Jon C

 

[PDQBach]

I haven't seen a *lot* of need for hammock tasks.

I'm also not in favour of a single task for the PM (especially one which runs the duration of the project).

My experience is that a project has two kinds of deliverables: the "product" deliverables (the "thing" that the project is going to deliver) and "project" deliverables (schedules, EVA reports, status reports, interim progress reports, transition documents, numerous communication documents, etc.) for which the PM is prime resource.

By extension, then, there are separate tasks for each of the deliverables with Start/Finish, work efforts, etc.

That's how I would set it up (especially since it makes tracking your own progress that much easier).