Hi,

I’ve got an interesting question form one of my blog reader. He’s got a problem. I will show you what kind of Problem does he has with MS PROJECT 2016!

Firs I will create new Project:

Everything looks perfect. Now, suppose that after the milestone has been finished, I have plan to do Next Task, for example, with 1 day Duration (1 Day Duration is from example of my blog Reader):

My Blog Reader did this:

He ask me: “Why is Start Date of Next Task, same as Milestone completed date (End Date)?”.  And he asks: “If I put that Next Task to be driven of Task 2, I get what I want!”

The problem lies here: If you want Next Task to start after Milestone is finished DO NOT PUT finish to finish relationship, like this:

As you can see Start date of Next Task is 05.05.2016, which is expected. With Finish to Finish Relationship you are telling to MS PROJECT: “I do not care when my Task will be started, but it has to be finished at the same task as my Predecessor!”. To show you that I will make finish to Finish relationship with Next Task, and Milestone, but I will change Duration of Next Task to 3 days, and I will get:

Now, you can see that Next Task will start earlier, at 02.05.2016, and that is exactly what I told to MS PROJECT: “Next Task should have 3 days duration, and it should be finished at the same time as Milestone, which is 04.05.2016”, and MS PROJECT has calculated Start date = Finish date – 3 days = 02.05.2016

So, be careful with task relations other than Finish to Start

Hope this helps!

Regards