TIPS - Setting up and maintaining tasks

Summary

Setting up and maintaining tasks

tasks should always be actions, otherwise they are not tasks
a task should not be an administrative activity; every task should be an actionable step towards a deliverable
- administrative activities could be put into an administrative "bucket" task
tasks should be broken down to a level where their duration is more than 8 hours (1 day) but less than 80 hours (2 weeks)
do not use start and finish dates for tasks since this will enforce unnecessary constraints in the schedule; use the deadline field to show deadlines for a task
- update using duration as well; do not update using start and finish fields
use summary tasks for phases, deliverables, et cetera
to create a milestone, create a task with 0 duration
your schedule can have tasks that are either duration or work (effort) within the same schedule
ensure that task relationship dependencies are set up appropriately so that there are no orphan tasks for the scheduling calculation
- avoid start-to-finish relationships, if possible
set up the tasks in the schedule based on how the work is going to be done
set up tasks individually, based on scope and deliverables
level of detail of tasks depends on what project manager can manage and required reports
if tasks are related to requirements, could add a field with the requirement #
can link tasks or summary tasks to WBS using WBS field

Article ID: 9158

Created

Thu 11/9/23 10:31 AM

Modified

Thu 11/9/23 10:31 AM