'Early Start' equals actual start date

Question

I am working on a project and the 'Early Start' column reads exactly the same as the actual 'start' column (following team assignment and task scheduling) for some fields.

I understand that the early start should in fact be the earliest I could possibly start it given constant 100% work rate on all tasks? Possibly my terminology is wrong?

I have extensive links but non on (or referencing) summary tasks.

Can any one offer an explanation or workaround?

Answer 1

Early Start will always be the same as Actual Start once the task has started. Put another way, once you tell MS Project that a task has started it will use that date and no longer calculate start dates. Works the same way for finishes.