MS Project 2003 - Duplicate Task

Question

Hi, I'm very new to MS Project so please excuse my ignorance and what is probably a stupid question. I'm using MS Project 2003.

I have a long list of tasks on a Gantt Chart. One task is something like "improve our reputation" which has sub tasks such as "promote ourselves with positive articles on local media", "conduct visits to universities and promote our business", "invite junior members to career days to see what it is we do" etc. Later in the Gantt Chart there is a task called "Customer Relations" where ""promote ourselves with positive articles on local media" is a subtask.

My question is: is it possible for the second "promote ourselves with positive articles on local media" to be a duplicate/mirror of the first? So only the first is editable, and the other is simply a mirror image?

Thanks very much for your help.

NG74

Answer 1

NG74,

I doubt your boss was literally declaring how the file should be organized. Strategies are conceptual and in my mind you the rest of your team need to implement those concepts with a logical (and sensible) organized plan that is usable.

Go forth and make it so.

John

Answer 2

Hi John and thank you for your kind and helpful answer.

I understand and agree with your reservations however the reason this Gantt chart is so disorganised is that it's basically a conglomeration of strategies that my boss assigned a number of us to work on individually. I'm collating the strategies and have found that some tasks (the media article is a good example) are replicated in multiple strategies. 

If mirroring the task in multiple lines is too difficult I may just have to assign a single day for the first time it appears and the remainder of the duration for the second, and link the two tasks together. It'll be a very clunk and inelegant solution but at the very least will show that the task feeds into multiple strategies. 

Thanks again

NG74

Answer 3

New Guy 74,

First of all, there are no stupid questions and, as it turns out, your question has been asked by various users over the years.

My take on the issue is this. In a good Project plan each and every task should be unique. There are no duplicates. Furthermore, summary lines are not tasks at all (even though they are called "summary tasks"). They simply categorize or summarize the activities (subtasks) under them. Those activities should be expressed in action verb format describing something that is accomplished using one or more resources. I like to refer to subtasks as "performance tasks" since the assigned resources perform work to complete the task.

In your particular case the "promote ourselves..." sounds more like a summary line that should contain specific development of articles for various media. For example, the first subtask might be "Write article for local newspaper". Another subtask might be "Create Facebook page". Another, "Send out weekly tweets". Those are performance tasks that can be assigned to a resource and can be measured to know when they are done.

By organizing the plan in that fashion, you might find that "customer relations" are automatically addressed by the above performance tasks but if there are other specific activities you could perform for your customer, then those can be shown under a separate customer relations summary.

But to answer your original question, yes there are ways to "mirror" tasks within a Project file but they are not necessarily straightforward.

Hope this helps.

John