Tasks need to be on same day for event

Question

So it's my first time using ms project, so forgive me for messing up terminology. Basically the problem is as follows: I have created 3 main tasks with a few subtasks each. I have then asigned predecessors for all tasks. The workdays are mon-fri basically 9-5. Now, there are sometimes a lot of small tasks which follow up on each other. Like contacting a consultant and a cook. However even if i assign one hour or less to such tasks, the next task only starts a day later. This is especially a problem for the last main task which is an event that only takes place for one day. it involves driving and delivering to the location, setting up the stage and the room, and the installations. Some of these tasks could be done at the same time by different people (for which I have also assigned recources). Again, ms Project automatically starts and ends the event on different days, even when i try to change it manually.

Does anybody know what I can do to make sure the event only takes up one day?

Answer 1

It seems that you use the Finish-to-Start relationship between all your tasks. You can use lag and lead in your relations. "To set Lead or Lag time between tasks, on the View menu – click Gantt Chart – select the desired task and go to Task Information – Predecessors – In the Lag field, type a positive number for lag time or a negative number for the Lead time." - projectplan365

Also, you can use other kinds of relations such as start-to-start which are not suggested.

Bests

Answer 2

I'm not entirely clear on the problem you're describing, but I think the way I'd handle it is to make them all dependent on the same task.

#	Task	Depends on
1	setup at client site
2	Transport materials to client site	1
3	prestage kitchen	1
4	construct stage at client site and install equipment	1
5	Final client site pre-check	1

All of the dependent tasks (2,3,4,5) should occur on the day and should occur in parallel.

But as I say, I'm not confident that I understand your problem. Feedback welcome

Answer 3

If you want to plan tasks down to the hour, you should switch the settings of your project file to have duration entered in hours instead of days (You can access this form by clicking File --> Options):

This will allow you to plan tasks down to the hour without the need to use different dependency types (Start-to-Starts or Finish-to-Finish) or worse, awkward negative lags, the latter of which I highly discourage.

This is different than assigning 1 hour of a resource to a task. You should think of the duration of the task in MS Project as mutually exclusive from the amount of labor hours assigned to it.

If you do not want most tasks in your schedule to be planned down to the hour, the best approach would be to find a way to generalize or roll-up tasks in such a way where their duration can be planned in day increments.