Mastering Your Project Schedule - Predecessors, Setting a Baseline, & Critical Path

[@CorissaHeins]

Wow, this is the best Smartsheets video I've watched. So helpful!

[@PMPexpert]

Glad it was helpful!

[@euroasiabtlimited3208]

Excellent. Look forward to more of your videos

[@PMPexpert]

Thank you very much!

[@StephenChun]

Hey Kandis, appreciations for your video and teaching style. It's very clear and informative. Thank you.

[@PMPexpert]

Thanks for watching, Stephen!

[@roxannepioquinto8199]

Thank you for this video, it help me a lot figure out the planning of my project. More power to you

[@atag512]

Beautiful video....im practicing....

[@PMPexpert]

Thanks for watching, Arvind!

[@smantoff]

Great video and explanation. Thank you

[@PMPexpert]

Thanks for watching!

[@tuckerh9664]

Very helpful! Thank you! Question - if I need a certain task to take place on a particular date, how do I make that work? You mention to change the durations/lag time and to not set the dates manually, but I need some tasks to stick to certain dates.

[@CorissaHeins]

You adjust the durations for prior steps till you hit that date. Or you link that step to a step that has to happen before it begins and adjust your duration till you hit that date.

[@PMPexpert]

Hi! You could put them in as project milestones with ‘0’ duration and manually set the date. That will ensure the dates don’t change in the schedule. I hope this is helpful!

[@tuckerh9664]

Thank you! That's exactly what I ended up doing. I appreciate the response and good info@@PMPexpert

[@yadirale1364]

Hi, Kandis thank you! This was great. How do you automate your project to alert team members that their tasks are ready to start after setting the predecessors, baseline, and critical path. Do you have a video on that? Thank you!

[@PMPexpert]

Hi Yadira! Unfortunately, there isn't an off-the-shelf feature for this in Smartsheet, although there should be. Checkout this Community discussion on it: community.smartsheet.com/discussion/99078/notify-successor-when-predecessor-task-has-been-completed Best of luck!

[@kashmoney1]

great video - how do you get those baseline colors to show up colored? mine is all blue and gray lol - thanks

[@PMPexpert]

Hello and great question! To view your critical path in Smartsheet, your sheet must be in Gantt View. You can then Click the ‘critical path’ icon in the upper-right of the sheet to add the red outlines to your Gantt chart. However, you must first set up your schedule properly using these steps: 1. Enable dependencies on the sheet by right-clicking any column header and selecting Edit Project Settings. 2. Set up tasks in the sheet with dates and duration values that represent the shortest amount of time the task may take. 3. For the critical path to be useful, use the Predecessors column to define relationships between tasks (finish-to-start works best with critical path).

[@kashmoney1]

@@PMPexpert awesome 👍🏼😎

[@billhendrickson9001]

Another stellar video demo by Kandis! Awesome. Thank you for your preparation, content and presentation. Robust schedules are built on fundamental rules of good scheduling, and you've nailed the basics including but not limited to "every activity must have a predecessor except for Project Kickoff" (or Notice to Proceed from the client). I'm just learning Smartsheet, so excuse the basic questions.... Is there a way to open the activity and see all the predecessors by activity name (not just the row #)? Can schedule activities be given an intelligent activity # instead of just a row #? When rows are added, are the predecessor activity/row #s corrected? Is there a weather calendar to assign non-work days for say asphalt placement in January? If columns are added for coding (e.g. to designate building floor), how do I create reports that sort/filter by those codes? Thanks in advance.

[@billhendrickson9001]

Adding commentary after today's breakthrough on adding logic to a project schedule. If one wants to tie out Activities to successors (since all activities should have successors except the final activity so that total float can be calculated properly), add a Successor column and use the Successor formula with this format: =JOIN(SUCCESSORS(Activity@row), ",") where Activity is the exact title of your Task/Activity column (this is key to teach Smartsheet where to look). Be sure to right click on Successor column heading or cell to Convert to Cell Formula that will convert all cells in that column to the successor formula. On to Total Float....

[@abeibrahim5846]

Great Tutorials - one Q: how do you deal with; when adding a new task while the below task has a Predecessor task and its number not changing to reflect the added task above it?

[@PMPexpert]

Hi Abe! Can you please provide additional detail on which number is not changing? Are you referring to the dates or a WBS number that was added manually?

[@Jack-hi6ox]

Is there a way to set a predecessor relationship where a line item can have a multiple day duration and happen before or after, but not concurrent with another activity? We have specific days of testing for commissioning we want to avoid having other activities, and I want those to be able to take precedence and move other activities automatically. I have 3 schedules for a single site and two of the schedules have these two day testing durations I would like to have next to nothing running concurrently.

[@PMPexpert]

Hi! Do you have access to Microsoft Project? This scheduling tool has more advanced constraint options than Smartsheet and might be worth exploring based on your needs. In MS Project, you can set up dependencies between tasks using the predecessor column. To ensure tasks do not overlap, you can use 'Finish to Start (FS)' or 'Start to Finish (SF)' dependency types with constraints. For the days when you have testing and want no concurrent tasks, you can set those particular tasks with a 'Must Finish On' or 'Must Start On' constraint to lock them to specific dates. This will automatically adjust the other tasks in the schedule when you enable auto-schedule. Remember to assign different resource allocations if you have the same resources assigned to tasks that shouldn't overlap. Hope this is helpful!

[@DenisesBates]

Thanks!

[@RaviG-rh6of]

Hi Kandis, Excellent video!. One quick question is how do we manage Predecessors when we insert new rows? Does it happen automatically? Q2. When I insert four rows and do indenting I loose all above dates. Please advice

[@PMPexpert]

For Question 1: Yes, if you insert a row, the Predecessors task should automatically update. For example, let's say the task in Row 11 is a predecessor task to the task in Row 9, and you inserted a Row between 5 & 6. Row 11’s predecessor would then automatically update to indicate it as a predecessor task to Row 10 (which is the task previously in Row 9). Regarding Question 2, it’s challenging to diagnose the issue without seeing your sheet, but here is my best guess. You are inserting rows and then indenting them, thus making them child rows. The disappearing date above might be dependent on the child row information. Therefore, once you enter your date information for those newly inserted/child rows, the disappeared information will automatically update with the child row information summary.

[@tannerschafer498]

Kandis, quick question! How do baselines and critical task work with an agile lifecycle? Often we don't know all the steps in each phase of the project or more come up down the line. Therefore, we cannot allocate time for each activity and get a baseline or utilize critical path. I'd love to be able to take advantage of the project baseline and critical path options on Smartsheet, but it doesn't seem feasible?

[@PMPexpert]

Great question, Tanner. Agile lifecycles really don’t have critical paths. When prioritizing the backlog and creating the sprint backlog, it is important to consider dependencies, however. That allows the tasks/features to be assigned to the same sprint or successor tasks/features to be assigned to a later sprint. The most value add tasks/features are generally prioritized and at the top of the backlog list, so that is your focus when sprint planning. Cheers!

[@tannerschafer498]

@@PMPexpert Looking back at this, my level of understanding has increased and I asked this question in a poor manner. In a traditional/waterfall project, we use the Rolling Wave Technique, where we identify and gather more requirements as the project moves forward. This is because it is nearly impossible to accurately estimate the Scope of work or all the requirements without getting further into the project. Which makes developing a baseline in Smartsheet nearly impossible or a Critical Path? I haven’t been able to figure it out anyway

[@karenanger-h6n]

Hello there!! I have a question! On my project chart, I zeroed all my duration for a certain summary row tasks because we dont need them. When i did that they all show ZERO but the summary line still shows 66days. How can i change that to ZERO??

[@PMPexpert]

It's a bit tricky to pinpoint the issue without diving into the sheet myself, but here's a suggestion: check the 'Start Date' and 'End Date' columns for those zero-duration rows. Make sure both dates are the same (zero duration) as well. Sometimes, the summary row pulls info from those date columns, not the 'Duration' column. Hope this helps!

[@Hope-lo4fm]

If a key project resource raised a significant issue which is preventing critical path work from progressing. What would you do in a scenario where the team’s solution means missing critical path milestone(s).

[@tannerschafer498]

Three possible options: 1) "Crash the schedule" add more resources if possible, 2) Reduce the Scope (eliminate some work on the project to reduce critical path) or 3) Ask the Project Sponsor or Customer for more time

[@PMPexpert]

Triple constraint theory at its finest, @Tanner! Thanks for your input. 👏🏻

[@peggylang6999]

I've searched in your channel and I don't think I have come across a video/tutorial that speaks to managing a 'Program'. I have found the Project tutorials helpful, but am wondering how you deal with a 'Program' schedule. i.e., how/what do I use to roll up 10 separate project schedules, milestones, risks for a high level view of all the projects?

[@PMPexpert]

Hi Peggy! I’m currently working on a Smartsheet ‘PMO template’ video. This will focus on rolling projects into a portfolio. Please keep an eye on the channel in coming weeks!