MS Project - Linking Summary-level Tasks

Estimating

PEGI DAVIS Renton, Wa, United States

Can someone point me in the direction (or give me some good arguments) as to why it's not a good idea to link Summary level tasks to successor tasks, as opposed to linking all the detail tasks under the Summary to the successor?

Posted: Jun 23, 2003 6:46 PM

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Mike Mellin Senior IT Project Manager| Dunhill Technical Services, LLC New York, Ny, United States

Easy

A summary task represents the summary of tasks under it, which may have links between them. Thus it makes no sense to me to link anything to a summary task. MS Project 2002 anyway should not let you do this. Makes no sense.

Posted: Jun 24, 2003 7:24 PM

Frank Patrick Boonton, Nj, United States

Absolutely agreed, Mike.

Just because MS Project lets you do something*, that's no reason to do it.

You want your project schedule to be as viable a model of expected reality, not just wall paper.

* somethings like linking to summaries, splitting tasks, using lags, using leads, identifying critical paths prior to leveling resources, using simple addition of single task estimates to determine the total duration of a complex set of tasks...
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Posted: Jun 25, 2003 7:05 AM

Mike Cooper PMP Principal Project Manager (retired, sort of)| New England Project Services Westford, Ma, United States

One of the negative consequences of linking at the summary level is the case where some lower level tasks in a subsequent summary task are not totally dependepent upon all the tasks in the other summary task being completed. This results in forcing your schedule to be longer than it otherwise might need to be - you could have people working on these tasks in the different summary tasks in parallel, but because you connected at the summary level, you cannot show this in your schedule.

Posted: Jun 25, 2003 9:31 AM

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MS Project - Linking Summary-level Tasks

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