Break a Large Task into Smaller Tasks

Not all critical tasks are necessarily created equal. Most of the ones in your schedule probably do correspond to a concrete, narrowly defined set of actions. But some might actually correspond to several smaller but still significant tasks, each of which should be included in your project plan as a separate task, and which you can then schedule more flexibly than one large task. If that’s the case, you can break down these overly large tasks into smaller subtasks.

Some of the subtasks may not need to be completed in sequence for the work to progress, so you may be able to shorten the critical path by making some of the subtasks noncritical. Even if some of the subtasks are critical, you might be able to overlap them or change the link type. Smaller, overlapping subtasks can have a shorter total duration than the original longer task.

Typically, when you use Microsoft Project to break a large task into smaller tasks, you make the large task a summary task by adding subtasks.

To break a large task into a summary task and subtasks

1. On the View Bar, click More Views .
2. In the Views list, click Detail Gantt or Tracking Gantt, and then click Apply.
3. In the Task Name field, select a single task on the critical path that could be completed in several steps.
4. Click Unlink Tasks .
5. Remove the resources assigned to this task.
   For information about removing resources from a task, see Chapter 8, "Assigning Resources to Tasks."
6. Select the task beneath the task you want to change, and then click New Task on the Insert menu.
7. Repeat step 6 for each subtask you want to add.
8. For each new task, type a name in the Task Name field and a duration in the Duration field.
9. In the Task Name field, select all the new tasks, and then click Indent to make them subtasks of the original task.
   The original task becomes a summary task.
10. Link the new tasks as appropriate.

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