Microsoft Project For Dummies. Cynthia Snyder Dionisio

decision might have taken months), the completion of a key deliverable, or the start or end of a project phase.

      Some people include tasks such as Design Completed or Testing Completed at the end of each phase of their projects. They can then create timing relationships to the moment of completion — for example, allowing the production of a drug to proceed after the testing and approval is complete. Such milestones also alert you and your team members to a moment of progress in your project that can help keep the team motivated.

Project creates new tasks with an estimated duration of one day unless you enter a duration. To create a milestone, you indicate that the task has zero duration. There are several ways to create a milestone:

       An easy way to do this is to simply type 0 in the Duration column in Gantt Chart view. When you do, the milestone is designated in Gantt Chart view with a diamond shape rather than a taskbar, as shown in Figure 3-6.

       You can also click Milestone in the Insert group on the Task tab of the Ribbon. A new task will show up that says <New Milestone>.

       Finally, you can click the Advanced tab in the Task Information dialog box and select the Mark Task As Milestone check box. Use this last method for any milestone that has a duration other than zero but that you want to mark as a milestone anyway; its milestone marker is charted at the end of the duration period on the Gantt chart.

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      FIGURE 3-6: Inserting a milestone.

Deleting Tasks and Using Inactive Tasks

      If your style is to delve into a lot of planning detail for everything you do, you may tend to overanalyze and add more tasks than you need to track in a project plan. In such cases, when you’re refining the project plan, you may decide that you need to delete a task or two to tighten up the plan. After all, the process of planning includes not only decomposing the work, but also consolidating tasks when they become too detailed. To delete a task, click its row (Task ID) number at the left side of the sheet and press the Delete key.

      

Project doesn’t display a warning or ask you to confirm deleting a task, so make sure that you really mean it when you press Delete. If you screw up, click the undo arrow in your Quick Access toolbar or press Ctrl+Z immediately to restore the deleted task. Also, be sure to check that any task dependencies (links) adjust as needed after you delete the task.

Another approach is to mark a task as inactive. Doing this leaves the task visible in the plan but strikes it out in the task sheet and on the Gantt chart, as shown in Figure 3-7. If any automatically scheduled tasks were dependent on the inactive task, Project ignores the now-inactive task when calculating the schedules for those other tasks. In the example in Figure 3-7, the milestone of Perimeter Complete moved from April 12 to March 15 due to inactivating the Guard House task.

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      FIGURE 3-7: Marking a task as inactive.

Follow these steps to mark a task as inactive:

      1 In Gantt Chart view, select the task to make inactive.

      2 Click the Inactivate button in the Schedule group on the Task tab of the Ribbon.Project immediately reformats the task as inactive.

      Leaving an inactive task in the schedule provides another opportunity to track and document what happened. You can do this by adding a task note explaining why the task was removed.

Making a Task Note

      Despite the wealth of information that you can enter about a task and its timing, not everything can be said with settings. That’s why every task includes an area to enter notes. You may use this feature, for example, to enter background information about constraints, detail a step-by-step process that’s summarized by the task duration, enter information about stakeholders, or list vendor contact information that’s relevant to the task.

      To enter task notes, follow these steps:

      1 Double-click a task.The Task Information dialog box appears.

      2 Select the Notes tab, as shown in Figure 3-8.

      3 In the Notes area, type any information you like.You can enter contact information, notes about resources, or other useful information about the task.

      4 Format the note, if desired.Click the buttons at the top of the Notes area to change the font. You can alsoLeft-align, center, or right-align text.Format text as a bulleted list.Insert an object.

      5 Click the OK button to save the note.You will notice that a note icon appears in the information column indicating there is now a note there.

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      FIGURE 3-8: Creating a task note.