Much has been written about Critical Path, Slack, Constraints, and the various forms of Duration and Dependencies. But, have you looked for Negative Slack? This is generally defined as the amount of time required to complete a task or project beyond its scheduled finish date. Think of it as the minimum amount of time to…

A question asked occasionally in the Microsoft Project and Project Online user forums is this: “How can I link a task in one project with a task in another project?” The heart of this question is that the project manager needs to know how to create cross-project dependencies. This question is relevant to almost all…

Put First Things First Once you have built a solid work breakdown structure (WBS), it’s time to walk the talk and put first things first. Building a complete and accurate dependency network is what makes the schedule truly proactive. When building dependencies, try to think about natural relationships that exist for the scope of work…

Early in my career I was assigned a project that had been running for almost a year, but had never seen a single live release to the customer. On my first day, I was informed, “Welcome aboard! But you are already 20 days late! You have to deliver a release in the next 30 days!”…

The Inactivate Task command works very much like “strike-out” or “Track Changes” in Microsoft Word. It allows you to remove segments of your project schedule to do “what-if analysis” or temporarily remove tasks not currently required while still preserving them for easy re-introduction to the schedule. As an example, my project was originally planned to…

1. When you schedule electronically, you should not enter start or finish dates for tasks. If you use Microsoft Project to simply capture dates and only dates, you may as well use Microsoft Excel instead. With MS Project, you enter durations and dependencies instead of dates to create a forecast model. The software then calculates start…

This tip explains Lag with Dependencies other than Finish to Start, like Finish to Finish and Start to Start, in Microsoft Project 2013. First we create a simple project: As you can see in the Predecessors field, Tasks 1 and 2 have a Finish To Finish (FF) relationship, and Tasks 3 and 4 have Start…

While PMI’s fifth edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)® Guide is a great source for understanding the theoretical concepts of project management, the 2013 edition of Microsoft Project implements those concepts in a practical manner. While the core concepts remain the same between the two sources, there are some differences in the…

A short clip from MPUG’s webinar with Microsoft Project MVP Dale Howard. Dale explains task types, their purpose and demonstrates how to set task type values. Join MPUG to watch the remainder of this session and hundreds more on-demand. MPUG Premium Members have access to weekly live webinars and recorded sessions, including all 4 videos…

There are several configuration settings available in Microsoft Project that control how the tool looks and behaves. Many of the settings are merely personal preferences, but some can be dangerous to your project schedule if you do not understand them and configure them properly. You can view or update these settings through the ‘Project Options’…