Troubleshooting

Providing Access to Related Documents

I have a lot of documents about the overall project, specifications for individual tasks, contracts for resources, and so forth. How can I link those documents to the tasks , resources, or assignments they refer to?

As you'll see in Chapter 5 and Chapter 10, you can provide links to other documents in the notes for individual tasks, resources, or assignments. If you have Project Server installed, you can also place documents in the SharePoint Document Library and provide links to the project there.

Determining the Level of Detail to Include in the Task List

I've been told that my project needs more detail. Are there any guidelines about how finely you should subdivide the work into distinct tasks?

You will want individual tasks to be long enough to manage easily. A good general rule of thumb is to subdivide the work into tasks that are at least a day long and no more than two weeks long. If you have weekly status meetings for the project, you might want to create tasks that are no more than a week long. That makes it much easier to keep track of progress and to know very early when things are falling behind.

These are general guidelines. If a project is extremely time critical ”for instance, a project which involves upgrading equipment that would necessarily disrupt other operations ”you might want to subdivide the work into tasks that are as short as an hour .