In the Trenches with Microsoft® Office Project 2007

Working with Constraints

So far in this chapter, you’ve seen how dependencies tie the timing of one task to the timing of another task. Dependencies alone do not determine the timing of a task. Unless you assign fixed start and finish dates for a task, Project determines the timing of a task using the task duration, calendars, dependencies, and constraints.

Warning

Should you assign start and finish dates to tasks? More often than not, no. If a task has immutable timing, such as a July 4 celebration on July 4th, use the Start and Finish fields. In most cases, however, you know how many work days you need to complete a task, but you don’t know when the work will be done. In these cases, supply a duration and let Project calculate the actual work ...