Limitation on Linking Plans Up (MS Project 2000)

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I am fairly new to MS Project. My Department is currently committed to created one MASTER MS Project Plan. This plan will link in 6 other MS Project Plans. Three of the six plans will link in 4-6 additional MS Project Plans, and those Plans will, in turn, link in 2-6 Plans. Is there a limitation on linking of this type in MS Project 2000. And, what are the major watch-outs that I should be looking for? Any help would be appreciated!
–cat

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I think the limitation you are going to encounter is one huge “headache” in trying to keep track of these plans. For example, lets say the master plan is behind schedule and you need to determine the cause of the delay. It is not going to be easy to see the issues at the deeper plans.

In theory, what you say should work but I have not tried creating plans that complex and deep.

How do you plan on maintaining the resource pools for all of these projects?

For scheduling, as in everything else, keeping things simple tends to enable one to quickly analyze and fix issues. You have one awfully complex schedule you are putting together….. Personally, I would be trying to maintain this.

One issue you may run into is when one plan is updated, the links to the other plans have to be refreshed and I wonder what will happen to the sequencing of the updates if plans are updated out of order? If automatic leveling is done, your whole plan may just go, in a technical term, beserk. Just thinking here. Your suggested setup is starting to scare the daylights out of me.

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Thanks for the info. Fortunately, we will not be using the resource capability in MS Project. And, unfortunately, I will probably be maintaining this.
–cat

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Thanks for the info. Fortunately, we will not be using the resource capability in MS Project. And, unfortunately, I will probably be maintaining this.
–cat

Reply | Quote

I think the limitation you are going to encounter is one huge “headache” in trying to keep track of these plans. For example, lets say the master plan is behind schedule and you need to determine the cause of the delay. It is not going to be easy to see the issues at the deeper plans.

In theory, what you say should work but I have not tried creating plans that complex and deep.

How do you plan on maintaining the resource pools for all of these projects?

For scheduling, as in everything else, keeping things simple tends to enable one to quickly analyze and fix issues. You have one awfully complex schedule you are putting together….. Personally, I would be trying to maintain this.

One issue you may run into is when one plan is updated, the links to the other plans have to be refreshed and I wonder what will happen to the sequencing of the updates if plans are updated out of order? If automatic leveling is done, your whole plan may just go, in a technical term, beserk. Just thinking here. Your suggested setup is starting to scare the daylights out of me.

Reply | Quote