Project 2010 For Dummies®

Chapter 5

Getting Your Outline in Line

In This Chapter

Understanding the summary task/subtask structure

Creating a project summary task

Building a plan manually from the top down

Promoting and demoting tasks

Displaying and hiding outline levels

Working with WBS codes

Certain things bring order to the universe: clocks, stop signs, and outlines, to name just a few. Whereas clocks bring order to time and stop signs bring order to rush hour, outlines bring order to information by imposing a hierarchy. An outline breaks down one idea or topic or category of information into smaller units with some logical sequence.

Project uses an outline structure to organize tasks in your project, as well as tools and functionality to help you build, reorganize, and view the outline structure. Learning how to create an outline is something you did back in Mrs. Plotkin’s fourth-grade English class, and now, showing you how to use an outline to organize the many tasks in your project is my job. Welcome to Outlining 101.

Summary Tasks and Subtasks

When you take a look at a project outline, such as the one shown in Figure 5-1, you see that it organizes tasks into levels; each level represents a phase of your project. A task that has other tasks indented below it in this outline structure is a parent task, or summary task. The tasks indented below it are child tasks, or subtasks. Summary tasks are indicated in bold in your Project outline. You can tell when a summary task has a family of subtasks clinging ...