Re: Re[2]: Idea: Dependencies between Tasks

mån 2002-07-01 klockan 22.42 skrev Michele Ravani:
> On Mon, 01 Jul 2002 13:00:03 +0100 Ian Phillips <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> IP> Hi Michele,
> IP> 
> IP> Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how your "events" are any
> IP> different 
> IP> from breaking a task down into sub-tasks.
> 
> Hi
> 
> There is no difference, it is an alternative which I think would add
> flexibility and provide a 'light-weight' way to define dependencies between
> tasks.
> 
> Assume that you have a task worth 10 days of development effort which is
> being done by a single developer, Joe. He knows what to do and could take the
> task and run with it. In a way, such a task is a 'natural' work unit.
> 
> However, another developer needs for his upcoming work, the API of the
> module in development, which is going to be ready (if all goes well) after
> 3 days worth of work.
> 
> I find that having to split the task in two (or more) just to be able to
> build my dependencies correctly is cumbersome: create a new task, describe
> it (not really necessary, Joe knows exactly what he has to do), assign a
> resource (with the chance that resource leveling will put it somewhere in
> 2010), an effort, etc.
> 
> An 'event' would simply be a satisfied condition or a state within a task.
> I would have to give it a label, may be a planned completion time (date or
> % of task) and eventually set the flag.
> 
> In principle, these 'events' are nothing else but a way to define
> dependencies between any two points within tasks.
> 
> I often met situations as the example above in the past, where one had to
> decide between the bore and effort to define zillions of almost senseless
> tasks (ok, ok I am exagerating a bit), or accept that the dependency
> network was in principle incorrect.

In the example you described there _is_ to phases (or more) of the large
task that you have. The design of the API is it's own subtask and should
be described as such. 

I think that having some kind of "events" that does the exact same job
as the subtasks (in a much fuzzier way) is only confusing and doesn't
really solve anything that isn't done correctly by using subtasks.

Regards,
  Mikael Hallendal

-- 
Mikael Hallendal                [email protected]
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