Manual Scheduling - Project 2010

It used to be that MSP automaticlly highlighted the longest path through the project as soon as you started giving activities durations. That changed with the 2003 version, after which you had to go into the Gantt Chart Wizard and turn on the highlighting of the critical path.

Apparently Microsoft got so many calls from users complaining that the software was highlighting certain activities.  "Sir, that's because it's the critical path."  "Not to me, it's not critical!"  So they turned it off.

Fraternally in project management,

Steve the Bajan

Hello,

The real reason is that Microsoft wants the user to establish a workflow while planning projects.

The first step is getting the project steps and their durations (fixed or estimated), right. Only once you are completely satisfied with the same, you can run the schedule and see how it looks like.  This is the preferred method of PMBOK and other methodologies, which tell you to get the steps right. Durations can be calculated afterwords.

Also, in most major project planning solutions (read Primavera) you have to do the same. Only after running a schedule do you get the durations in sequence.

Of course, you always have the freedom to go the Options and select 'AUTOMATIC' calculation in MSP 2010. All 'NEW' projects will be henceforth calculated automatically. Just like previous versions.

I hope that helped.

Cheers and Regards,

L_H

Dear All,

I have the same observation, all Microsoft t software latest versions are more cumbersome, softwares are suppose to be more user friendly, but now they they are all pain in the ass.  It is all business you know, they probably can not improve them anymore and hence we are getting all this crap so they can realease new versions. Microsoft really works!

Regards,

Daniel