Thông tư Quản lí chapter4

Chapter 4 - Breaking Your Project into Tasks,
Phases, and Milestones
Introduction
What Are Tasks, Phases, and Milestones?
Tasks
Phases
Milestones

The Core of Your Project Plan: The Task List
Enter Tasks
Delete Tasks
Enter Recurring Tasks
Add Milestones
Estimate Task Length
Enter or Change Task Durations
Enter the Duration Only, and Let Microsoft Project Do the Rest for You

A Logical, Well-Ordered Task List
Order and Group Related Tasks in Your Task List
Summing Up Summary Tasks
Outline Your Task List
Expand and Collapse Summary Tasks

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Introduction
By themselves, project goals have no substance, however clearly you specify them. Each goal is merely an
intention, a wish floating on air. The way to crystallize and achieve your goals is to build a gridwork of solid
beams beneath them. In your project, those solid beams are called tasks.

But simply including tasks in your project isn’t enough to reach your project goals efficiently. Individual tasks
with no dependency on one another are like beams heaped haphazardly in a pile. Just as beams — or bricks or
columns or arches — need to be grouped logically to be effective, so too do tasks. In a project, a logical grouping
of tasks that completes a major step is called a phase. Often, completing a phase of a project indicates that a
milestone, a significant event marking project progress, has been reached.
With Microsoft Project, you can easily group tasks into phases and specify milestones. Moreover, you can show
project phases and subphases (and subsubphases, if you want), as well as the hierarchy among tasks by
outlining your tasks. In Microsoft Project, a phase and any other logical grouping of tasks is represented by a
summary task, which consists of and summarizes its constituent tasks.

What Are Tasks, Phases, and Milestones?
If your project has only a few tasks that need to be done in a hurry, you can probably manage it by listing the
tasks in rough chronological order. It doesn’t matter much if two or more tasks constitute a substep within the
project; your main concern is that all the tasks get done as soon as possible.
If, however, your project contains dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of tasks, then trying to accomplish
everything in your project all at once would be like trying to jump to the top of a tall tower in a single bound
(crash!). Tasks, phases, and milestones are like the steps leading to the tower pinnacle. They enable you to get
from the start to the finish of your project, one manageable chunk at a time.

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Tasks
A task is a concrete step that’s required to meet a project goal. It represents actual work that will be done in
your project, the underlying structure of your project.
To manage your project effectively, you need to define your tasks so that they are the right size. If your tasks are
too large, they might mask smaller tasks that actually need to be completed and tracked separately. If your
tasks are too small, they might be trivial and clutter your project plan, making it difficult for you to manage the

tasks that are truly critical to your project.
For example, laying a tower foundation is too large to be one task. Why? Because there really is no single task
"Laying the tower foundation." It’s not a single action that can be done all at once. To accomplish this goal,
various tasks such as digging a hole and pouring concrete must be performed. These are the tasks that would be
included in a project plan. (Though "Laying the tower foundation" could be considered a summary task that
includes the other tasks; see "A Logical, Well-Ordered Task List" later in this chapter.)
On the other hand, an action such as turning on the cement mixer is too small to be included as a task. By itself,
it doesn’t advance the project at all. It’s really part of the task of pouring the concrete.
The main thing to remember is that although tasks should be well-defined, precise, and detailed, they must also
be significant. Their completion should move the project forward measurably.

Phases
A phase consists of a group of related tasks, such as buying cement, renting the cement mixer, and pouring the
concrete. A phase represents a major step in the project. Breaking a project into phases enables you to focus on
one aspect of the project at a time, see the logical flow of tasks in the project, determine whether any tasks are
missing from that phase, and report project status at the right level of detail to others.

Milestones
Most of the tasks in a phase represent actions that must be taken, such as painting a wall. But you can also
include other "tasks" solely to indicate (or celebrate) the beginning or end of a phase, such as start painting all
rooms or finished painting all rooms. Milestones are tasks that require no actual work. They are interim goals
that you can use to track the progress of your project.

The Core of Your Project Plan: The Task List
Without a grocery list, you might not remember all the ingredients you need to buy for tonight’s dinner. Without
a task list, you might leave out some of the tasks that need to be performed to achieve your project goals. The
task list is the core of your project plan. It consists of all the tasks, phases, and milestones required by your
project.

To create an effective task list, use the following rules of thumb:

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•
•
•
•

Include only tasks that are critical to the completion of your project.
Add tasks that are significant, yet detailed enough that the time to complete each one is short compared
to the overall project length.
Build in phases and milestones.
Remember tasks that occur repetitively, such as weekly meetings, status reporting, and anticipated
revision work.

In Microsoft Project, you enter and work with tasks mainly in the Gantt Chart view. As you create your task list,
you can easily refine it by adding milestones, entering tasks that occur at regular intervals, entering the
estimated time each task will take, and deleting unnecessary tasks.

Enter Tasks
After you decide which tasks you want to include in your project, you can enter those tasks into your project
plan. This is the biggest and most important step toward achieving your project goals.
Although you can create your task list in a number of Microsoft Project views, you might find it most convenient
to enter your tasks in the Gantt Chart view. In the Gantt Chart view, you not only see your tasks as you enter
them, but you also see additional task information that Microsoft Project provides in the view fields (which are
represented by columns). Microsoft Project adds this information to the chart portion of the Gantt Chart view.

Even though Microsoft Project starts scheduling tasks as soon as you enter them, the project and task schedules
are not accurate until the entire plan is built. For example, you can change task durations after you add each

task or after you finish entering all tasks.
To enter a task in the Gantt Chart view
1.
2.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
In the Task Name field, type a task name.
Use a verb and a noun to name tasks (for example, Pour concrete).

3.

Click

or press

ENTER.

If you created a task list in another program and want to add it to your project plan, see Chapter 20, "Sharing
Information with Other Programs."

Delete Tasks
With Microsoft Project, you can delete unneeded tasks easily. You can, for instance, delete a summary task (and
all of its subtasks) or any individual task itself. After you delete a task, Microsoft Project automatically renumbers
the remaining tasks.
To delete a task
1.
2.
3.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
In the Task Name field, select the task you want to delete.
On the Edit menu, click Delete Task.

You can restore a deleted task
right after deleting it by clicking
Undo

.

For more information about summary tasks, see "Summing Up Summary Tasks" later in this chapter.

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Enter Recurring Tasks
If a task in your project occurs repeatedly during the course of the project — weekly status meetings are a
common example — it would be time-consuming to enter each occurrence. With Microsoft Project you need enter
each recurring task only once; then all of its occurrences are automatically added to your project plan at the
frequency you specify.
You can set up a task to occur daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. You can also specify the duration of each
occurrence, when the task will occur, and how often (or for how long) it should recur.
To enter a recurring task
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

6.

7.
8.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
In the Task Name field, select the row above which you want to insert the recurring task.
On the Insert menu, click Recurring Task.
In the Name box, type the task name.
In the Duration box, type the duration of a single occurrence of the task.
Under This occurs, click the interval at which the task will recur.
The option you click determines whether the Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly options are displayed.
If you select Weekly, you must also select a day or days of the week
on which the task occurs.
If you don’t enter a date in the
Under Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly, specify the task
From box, the project start date
frequency.
is used.
Under Length, type the start date in the From box and type the
finish date in the To box, or type the number of times the task will
occur in the For occurrences box.

Add Milestones
If your project plan consists purely of tasks, or just tasks and phases, it may not be apparent when you’ve
completed a major step. To mark the completion or beginning of significant sections of your project, you can add
milestones.

In Microsoft Project, a milestone is indicated by a task with zero duration. So, your first step in adding a

milestone is to enter it in the Task Name field. When you enter a duration of zero days for the task, Microsoft
Project displays a distinctive diamond-shaped milestone symbol at the start of that day on the Gantt Chart.
Add a milestone to the end of a phase or to mark a point in the project when you must deliver something to a
supervisor or a client (such as a report, a product, or a service) that’s due before the project ends.
To enter a milestone
1.
2.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
In the Duration field of the task you want to change, type 0days.

3.

Click

or press

ENTER.

Estimate Task Length

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Like everything else in life, each task in your project will take a certain amount of time to complete (unless it’s a
milestone). That certain amount of time is called the task duration. By including each task’s duration in your
project plan, you get some sense of how long the project will take. Besides, Microsoft Project can’t calculate a
schedule accurately if it doesn’t have accurate duration estimates from you. So you’re going to need some way

to estimate task duration. You can approach this in several ways:
• Base estimates on the experience of others. Find out from the people who are or have been responsible
for these tasks how long they think the tasks will take.
• Base estimates on your experience. If you have managed projects that included similar tasks, you might
be able to apply your old estimates to the new tasks.
• Base estimates on past records, if any. Perhaps you have copies of past project plans that include
estimated or actual durations for tasks similar to the ones in your current project.
In Microsoft Project, a task’s duration does not include any nonworking time, such as weekends and holidays. So,
for example, a 4-day task scheduled to begin on a Thursday will occur on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and
Tuesday.
If you want to schedule a task over a continuous period of time, including nonworking time, you can specify an
elapsed duration. Using elapsed duration, a 4-day task that begins on a Thursday will occur on Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. For example, use elapsed duration to indicate the time required for a painted wall to dry.
If the wall was painted on Friday and it took 2 days to dry, the elapsed duration would span 3 days, beginning on
Friday and ending on Sunday.

Enter or Change Task Durations
When you enter a task, Microsoft Project gives each task a duration of 1 day by default. It would be an unlikely
coincidence if, in fact, all your tasks really did last just 1 day. You’ll probably want to change the durations of
most tasks.
You can assign durations to tasks using minutes, hours, days, or weeks. By entering just a duration for each task
and letting Microsoft Project calculate the start and finish dates for you, you’ll create the most efficient schedule.
To change a task duration
1.
2.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
In the Duration field for the task duration you want to change, type the duration you want.
To specify elapsed duration, precede the time unit with the letter "e" (for example, edays for elapsed

days).

3.

Click

or press

ENTER.

Enter the Duration Only, and Let Microsoft Project Do the Rest for You
As you enter tasks, Microsoft Project schedules them to start on the project start date. Of course, every task
won’t start immediately. Later on, as you enter additional information about tasks, such as their dependencies
on other tasks (for example, hang clocks on the wall only after the paint has dried), Microsoft Project
automatically sets more realistic start dates.
To give Microsoft Project the flexibility to schedule realistic start dates, you should enter the task duration only —
not the start and finish dates for a task. If you enter the start and finish dates for a task, you restrict the task to
starting no earlier than the start date. For example, if you specify a fixed start date for hanging clocks on a wall
and the date for painting the walls slips, you and the clocks are going to get awfully messy. If you specify the
duration only, you enable Microsoft Project to schedule the clock-hanging flexibly, moving the start date forward
or back if the wall-painting occurs later or earlier than planned. Restrict a task to start on a certain date only
when it’s absolutely necessary.
For more information about making tasks start or finish on a certain date, see Chapter 6, "Tying Tasks to Specific
Dates."

A Logical, Well-Ordered Task List
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You could construct a tower by building the pinnacle first and then adding the middle and bottom sections. But
you probably won’t get many visitors to an upside-down tower.
You’d do better if you performed your tasks in a logical order and grouped them so that you did all of the tasks
for each stage of construction at about the same time. That’s just what Microsoft Project enables you to do with
your project tasks. By organizing your tasks logically, you can:
• Spot missing tasks or flaws in the logical flow of tasks.
• Complete each phase of your project at the right time.
• Create a hierarchy to show each task as part of a major step.
Organizing your tasks is a three-step process. First, put your tasks in a logical order; next, group related tasks;
and then outline your task list.
Enter or move tasks such that your task list shows the required or most efficient order for performing the tasks.
For example, put "Digging the hole for a building’s foundation" before "Pouring the concrete." In another part of
the project, you might find it more efficient to put up the roof before constructing the internal walls (with a roof,
fewer work days are lost to adverse weather).
You can cluster tasks to be done together in the same section of the task list. For example, you might group all
the tasks for laying a foundation at the beginning of a task list for constructing a tower. Microsoft Project makes
it easy to move tasks where you want them.
Once you’ve logically ordered and grouped your tasks, you can show hierarchical dependencies among them by
outlining them. When you outline tasks, they look like the chapters and topics outlined in a book’s table of
contents. For instance, you might show "Laying a foundation" as a main step and "Digging a hole" and "Pouring
concrete" as substeps beneath it. Outlining visually distinguishes one group of related tasks from another,
allowing you to focus on the details of one group of tasks at a time.

After grouping your tasks, you create a task outline by indenting tasks and outdenting tasks. When you indent a
task to a level lower than the task above it, the task above becomes a summary task. Typically, a summary task
represents a phase or a subphase of your project.
It is by creating summary tasks that you harness the real power of outlining.

Order and Group Related Tasks in Your Task List
After you create your task list, you want to be sure that the tasks are in the order in which they’ll actually be

performed. Putting your tasks in a realistic order is necessary for creating an accurate project schedule. Without
order, for instance, the task start and finish dates calculated by Microsoft Project would be meaningless. You
couldn’t accurately predict when a particular task should be completed.
Putting tasks in a realistic order is essential but not sufficient for creating a project plan that’s as useful as it can
be. A straight list of tasks doesn’t tell you, for instance, where one phase ends and another begins. When you
group related tasks, however, you begin to create an outline that mirrors both the task flow and the major steps
in your project. Although you can use any criteria for grouping tasks (such as shortest tasks and longest tasks,
required tasks and optional tasks, and fun tasks and grunt work), the following two grouping criteria are the
most common:
• Tasks that are part of the same process. Digging a hole and pouring concrete are part of the larger
process of laying a foundation.
• Tasks that are completed in the same time period. All the tasks required to lay a foundation must be
completed before construction of the ground floor begins.

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Once you decide on the best order for your tasks and determine your grouping criteria, move tasks around
within the task list to group each set of related tasks. As you analyze your task list, you may want to move a task
to a group to which it’s more closely related. Or, you may want to reorder
tasks within a group.
By clicking the task ID number,
you select the entire task row,
To move a task
including all the information for
1. On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart
.
the selected task.
2. Click the ID number of the task you want to move.

3.
4.

Click Cut Task
.
Select the row above which you want to insert the task.

5.

Click Paste

.

Summing Up Summary Tasks
A summary task is a main task comprising subtasks. It is often used to identify the major and minor phases of
your project. For instance, the summary task "Lay the foundation" could include the subtasks "Dig a hole" and
"Pour the concrete."
Like a milestone, a summary task requires no work; it’s not a detailed set of actions that someone actually
performs. But unlike a milestone, a summary task summarizes information about its subtasks. For example, if
you assign costs to your tasks, a summary task’s cost is the sum of its subtasks’ costs.

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Regardless of how many tasks are in your project, you can show a very detailed hierarchical structure among
tasks. Microsoft Project enables you to create summary tasks containing subtasks that are themselves summary
tasks.

The advantage of creating an outline of summary tasks and subtasks is that it allows you to view and print your

project plan at an appropriate level of detail. You can hide and show subtasks as you see fit. For example, if you
hide your subtasks so that only the highest-level summary tasks are shown, you get a broad overview of your
project. Then, you can show just the summary tasks for the current phase of your project and print that view of
your plan for your next meeting.

Outline Your Task List
You’ve grouped related tasks and put them in the order you want. But because the task names all line up on the
left, there’s no way to tell where one group ends and another begins. Also, a
simple, undifferentiated list can’t show which tasks represent major steps or
You’ll find it best to stick with
phases.
either a top- down approach
The way to visually distinguish one group of tasks from another, and to show (summary tasks first) or a
which tasks belong to a specific project phase, is to outline your task list. With bottom-up approach (subtasks
Microsoft Project, you can move a task to a level lower than the task above it first) when building your
by indenting it. Conversely, you can raise a task to a level higher in the
schedule.
outline hierarchy by outdenting it (unless it is already at the highest level).
When you indent a task with respect to the task above it, the task above becomes a summary task and the
indented task becomes its subtask. You can also turn a task into a summary task by outdenting it to a level
higher (if it’s not already at the highest level) than the tasks that follow it. Whichever method you use, you
should assign at least two subtasks per summary task.

By outlining your task list, you make it easy to reorganize your project schedule. Whenever you move or delete a
summary task, all of its subtasks go with it.
To indent or outdent a task
1.
2.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart

.
In the Task Name field, select the task you want to indent or outdent.

3.

Click Indent

to indent the task or click Outdent

to outdent the task.

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Expand and Collapse Summary Tasks
When viewing your plan, sometimes you just want to see an overview of your project that includes the major
steps or phases. Sometimes you need to see every task, down to the smallest detail. When you outline your
project, indenting subtasks under summary tasks, you can view and print your project plan at any level of detail
by collapsing and expanding various summary tasks in your project.

By collapsing or expanding an outline, you can hide or display the subtasks of a summary task. For example, you
can collapse the outline to show only the top-level tasks, and then print that view to create a summary report for
your project. You can also collapse or expand specific summary tasks, highlighting (in bold) or hiding the tasks or
group of tasks you want.
To collapse or expand an outline
1.
2.

On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart

.
In the Task Name field, select the summary task containing the
subtasks you want to show or hide, or select the nonsummary tasks
you want to hide.

3.

Click Show Subtasks

To expand the entire outline,
click Show All Subtasks

to show the subtasks or click Hide Subtasks

.

to hide the subtasks.

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