I have a project with several tasks, mostly organized within task groups. There is one group of three tasks that I’d like to force to be scheduled back to back (eg, task 1 on Monday, task 2 on Tuesday, task 3 on Wednesday). The individual tasks are assigned to different staff members, who have other tasks assigned as well. I have assigned dependencies Task 1 --> Task 2 --> Task 3.
What is the best way to force scheduling back-to-back days?
Right now, I seem to have figured out that assigning “priority 1” to the three tasks, accomplishes what I want. Is this the best way to do it?
I don’t otherwise use priorities, so I’m not sure if it will affect the project in other ways.
I also feel there might be another way to accomplish what I want, but I’m not sure what it is.
I appreciate any guidance!
[UPDATE 1]
Well, the priority method doesn’t quite work.
I assigned a few more dependencies from other tasks to my priority tasks. This has the affect of separating my three priority tasks.
For example, I now have Task A --> Task 3, which bumps Task 3 by a day. The effect is a gap day between Task 2 and Task 3.
I feel I’m missing something obvious here…
[ UPDATE 2]
I have a small workaround. For the moment, I changed the dependencies to the entire group:
Task A --> Group 1: [Task 1–>Task 2–>Task 3]
This mostly gets it, even though the real dependency is Task A–>Task 3. Keep in mind Task A and Task 3 are assigned to different staff. So, really, Task A could be scheduled at the same time as Task 1 or 2, as long as it happens before Task 3.
That’s what I hoped to accomplish but, again, the way I set it up, breaks a day between Task 2 and Task 3.