Splitting Tasks into Smaller Pieces
Sometimes splitting
a long task into several shorter ones can help you shorten your
schedule. For example, instead of asking one person to carry out one
big task, you may be able to assign different people to perform some of
the work simultaneously. Huge, single-handed tasks are rare, as they
should be, if you’ve created a thorough work breakdown structure.
However, if a long task sneaked past your WBS work, you can turn the
original task into a summary task and create subtasks underneath it.
Here are the steps to create a subtask:
-
Select the Task Name cell below the original long task, and then press the Insert key to create a new task.
A blank row appears underneath the original long task.
-
Press the Insert key repeatedly until you have enough blank rows for the subtasks you want to create.
When you’re done, select the blank Task Name cell immediately below the original task.
-
Type the name of the subtask, and then press Enter.
Project selects the next Task Name cell, so you can repeat this step to fill in the Task Name cells for all the subtasks.
-
Select all the tasks you just created, and then choose Task→Schedule→Indent Task (a green arrow pointing to the right).
The original task turns into a summary task with the newly created tasks as its subtasks.
-
Edit each subtask to define their durations or work, add the resources you want, and then link them.
Be sure to remove the resource assigned to the original long task, or you’ll have double the work and cost.
Fast-tracking is about
getting where you’re going faster than usual. Unfortunately, like
applying makeup, drinking coffee, and dialing into conference calls
while driving to work, fast-tracking in project management can also increase risk considerably.
Fast-tracking a project means overlapping tasks that usually follow
one another. At its best, fast-tracking shortens a project schedule
without increasing cost or sacrificing quality. For example, if you’re
launching products in different markets, the creative advertising folks
can work on the ads while the media planners line up advertising
outlets and the Accounting Department negotiates the price of
advertising spots.
The risk is that work done in a predecessor task doesn’t mix with
work that’s already been done in an overlapping successor task.
Backtracking to recover from these wrong turns can negatively affect
your project time, money, quality, or scope. For example, say the
technical writing team writes help topics before the software is
complete. Late-stage software design changes could require rewriting
help topics, or worse, reprinting documentation.
Finding Tasks to Fast-Track
Some tasks are more conducive to overlapping
than others. For example, tasks earlier in the project are riskier to
overlap. Designs tend to change in the early stages, so you wouldn’t
want to pour concrete based on early sketches. But once the design is
finished and approved, you can overlap plumbing and wiring without too
much trouble. You may need to tell each contractor where to start
working, but the systems shouldn’t interfere as long as everything goes
where the architectural plans say it should.
Critical tasks are still the best candidates for fast-tracking,
because a shorter critical path means shorter project duration. Long
tasks on the critical path are the most effective choices because a
small percentage of task overlap represents a significant cut in
project duration. Moreover, overlapping the longest tasks may shorten
the schedule with only a few changes, so you don’t have as many risks
to monitor. For example, overlapping a 3-month task by 10 percent
shortens the critical path by 9 days. Overlapping a 10-day task by 9
days is a 90 percent overlap—the tasks practically run simultaneously,
so changes in the first task are more likely to affect the second task.
Filtering the task list for critical tasks is the easiest way to find which tasks to evaluate for fast-tracking.
You can work backward from the finish date and look for critical path
tasks that you can overlap with acceptable risk. To focus on fast-track
candidates in Project, do the following:
-
Hide the summary tasks in the task list by choosing Format→Show/Hide and then turning off the Summary Tasks checkbox.
If your project uses several WBS levels, the summary tasks can
outnumber the critical tasks, so hiding summary tasks helps you focus
on critical work tasks.
-
Focus on critical tasks by applying the Critical filter
.
Click the down arrow to the right of the Task Name column heading, and then choose Filters→Critical.
-
Jump to the last task in the task
list by pressing Ctrl+End, and then work backward, looking at every
pair of linked critical tasks for tasks you can overlap.
If you want to look at the longest critical path tasks first, sort
tasks by duration from longest to shortest. Click the down arrow to the
right of the Duration column heading, and then choose Sort Largest to
Smallest. You see the critical tasks listed with longest durations at
the top, as shown in Figure 12.
