Showing delay time (2003)

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Hi, I’m fairly new to all this. I’m working on a project, part of which is to do with an application for a licence. There are tasks that lead up to completing and posting the licence application and then there are tasks that can only start when the licence has been approved, estimated to be 5 weeks later. (Other unrelated tasks continue during this time).

I’m trying to find out how best to show this period of inactivity in the Gantt chart so that it is visible and can count (its likely to be part of the critical path. One option I’ve found so far is to create a dummy task with 5 weeks duration coloured differently from other bars to indicate its external nature. Another might be to mark the expected date of receipt of the licence with a milestone and give this a lag time of 5 weeks. I can use this to link in subsequent related tasks.

Is there an accepted way of showing such external delays in projects? How would others show these delays? Any help would be welcome.

Dave

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Dave:

Personally I would go with your second option. Link the approval of the application back to posting, with a 5 week lag to show the anticipated delay.

Tony.

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I use the “dummy” task bar because it is readable to others. It is visually good in that it has a name and also has an attached Gantt bar. If no resources are assigned it just becomes a placeholder. A lag is just a gap that visually seems to have no reason attached to it. I think either choice would work well, but since the one of the main functions of Project is to be a tool to communicate information about your project to others with an interest in the project the placeholder Gantt bar is easily read.

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