Avoiding using constraints in the Project Schedule

[Alasdair]

Hello rd
Wonder if anyone can enlighten:
I’ve read many articles and best practice advice from contributors to this forum regarding the avoiding (as much as possible at least) the use of constraints on a project plan. All sounds good but how can you do this if you regularly reschedule start dates? Any of the tools I use apply a constraint as a result. The only way that works for me is to incorporate lag and / or Lead time.
Great to know the proper approach to this.

[Anonymous]

Alasdair, that’s actually a good question. Yes, using predecessors to dynamically schedule your project is “best practice”. There are a lot of best practices, and to use them all requires a pretty detailed level of managing projects. I’m not sure if your question is about a particular project or all your projects. Some projects just don’t work well using pure predecessors. Here’s some thoughts. If you are setting lag and lead just to get the successor task to start where you want it to then using a constraint is probably a better solution. If the successor task isn’t dependent on the predecessor task then using a constraint is definitely a better solution (although in reality something should driving each task). Just think about each situation. Here’s a thought, if you are managing projects without managing actual schedule (simply marking tasks as complete or not without regard to timeline), then set tasks up however you want. If that’s the case I would certainly encourage learning more about Microsoft Project, but there are many who manage that way. Hope that helps…

[Author]

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