4 ms·

Their prices on OF are kinda throwback-y, but the pricing for OmniPlan is probably VERY influenced by how expensive MSP is, or traditionally was. It's topic dr

Their prices on OF are kinda throwback-y, but the pricing for OmniPlan is probably VERY influenced by how expensive MSP is, or traditionally was. It's topic drift, but MS Project has done to the critical-path scheduling world what IE did to the browser world. It's worse than the incumbents in lots of material ways, but it's a LOT cheaper and much easier to learn, and so it's sucked up all the oxygen. I work in enterprise project management / earned value. It USED to be that there were lots of contenders for critical path project management software. Now the last non-MSP product standing is Primavera, and it's somewhat neglected by its new corporate master -- the original owner sold his company to Oracle years ago and Oracle hasn't really done much with it. So the world at large is, increasingly, stuck with MSP if they want this sort of creature. And MSP, instead of using their position to encourage good practices, or adopt widely-supported features still unaccountably lacking from the product, has instead introduced "features" like Manual Tasks. What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task. A "Manual Task" just ignores all that. If this doesn't make immediate sense to you as a horrible idea, let me explain it by way of example. Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math!

wtallis 6y ago
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. It sounds like a Manual Task is simply a way to acknowledge that your project has a dependency on something in the outside world that is beyond your control, and that seems like a useful feature. Why are you so vehemently opposed to having that capability?
- ubermonkey 6y ago
  See my other comment, supra. There are other constructs that exist in the project management world to model what you refer to. A "manual task" that appears to be part of the critical path, but is in fact NOT, is a time bomb waiting to go off, because its failure to show real forecast information will absolutely lead the schedulers to think all is well when it's not. IOW, trust me when I tell you this is a bad idea not grounded in anything like project management best practices.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    Ok, so you're just explaining this badly. The problem is not that "manual tasks" exist, but that they can be created with (false) dependencies on other tasks that have flexible scheduling. The way you originally explained Manual Tasks naturally leads to a perfectly valid use case, but apparently MS Project also allows for an invalid usage of that feature.
    - ubermonkey 6y ago
      I'm really not. You're just doing that very-very-HN thing where you assume your surface understanding is sufficient. Manual tasks in MSP are a very bad idea. There is no valid use case for them in critical path scheduling. They exist because some muzzy-headed marketer at Microsoft decided to insert them into the backlog, near as I can tell, despite the cries of actual professionals who use the tool. There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, as I said, tantamount to turning off "math" because you don't like what it shows you.
      - wtallis 6y ago
        I'm finding it really odd how you are still insisting so vehemently that it's a horrible misfeature, and yet you haven't described what you consider the proper way to represent immovable parts of the schedule, and have barely even acknowledged the need for such a thing. Please, tone down the ranting and try to explain this stuff in a useful way. > There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, [...] Can you finish that paragraph in an informative manner? This is Microsoft that we're talking about, so I don't doubt that they could put in a feature that is as horribly misguided as you claim; I've encountered a few myself. But you've really just been repeating your original assertion without justifying it, and that's unhelpful. Getting haughty about it is even less helpful.
vaduz 6y ago
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task. [...] A "Manual Task" just ignores all that. That's assuming that all your tasks are movable. If there is a task that can only be completed in a certain time period (and there are some activities that you cannot or will not move in any organisation), you plan around it. It will not move just based on your whims or your schedule. And yes, it can mean that your auto-schedule makes no sense if something gets delayed and the task causes your critical path scheduling not to make sense any more, but that is the price you pay in the real world. It's a weird hill to die on. > Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math! Imagine if someone was able to type in a flat, straight up not calculated number in a calculation spreadsheet, overriding any formula that you have put in. The world would end.
- ubermonkey 6y ago
  You're thinking of this the wrong way (and, not to put too fine a point on it, NOT in the way project management professionals do). A critical path project has a chain of tasks. Task A must complete before B which must complete before C, and so forth. If A is delayed, but you've turned off the critical path engine by making C a "manual task", then C's forecast dates *WILL NOT REFLECT* the anticipated move to the right as a result of A's delay. This is a HUGE problem. You rely on forecast dates being live, and showing true projections of reality (or as true as possible). You can even seat deadlines, and generate alerts if a task isn't going to meet one. But if you nail something down because it quote-unquote can't slip, you're preventing the software from telling you when a slip is coming. That is very, very, very dumb. It's also entirely predictable that someone on HN would try to tell me it isn't. And yes, you can put literal numbers in spreadsheets. But bad things DO happen when people represent values as sums (or as otherwise calculated based on other values) when they are in fact not. That's what "manual tasks" are.
m463 6y ago
> Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic Although finance types would be interested. (and OO programmers)
dragonwriter 6y ago
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. It certainly can be abused, but at the level you have described it, it seems a straightforward way of modeling things outside of the scheduling control of the project. (Now, if it's allowed to have other tasks as dependencies, and doesn't basically raise a giant red flag if the calculated time of those dependencies pushes past the begin or end of the Manual Task, depending on the kind of dependency, that's a problem with the implementation, but at the level you have described it the concept isn't misplaced.) On one level, needing to use it is a management smell that control may not have been assigned over all things it should be to effectively manage a project, but that's very much a reality. > Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. You mean, if excel let you directly enter a value in a cell, even if headings suggest it's a calculation? I'm pretty sure it's has that feature from say one.

wtallis 6y ago

> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. It sounds like a Manual Task is simply a way to acknowledge that your project has a dependency on something in the outside world that is beyond your control, and that seems like a useful feature. Why are you so vehemently opposed to having that capability?

ubermonkey 6y ago
See my other comment, supra. There are other constructs that exist in the project management world to model what you refer to. A "manual task" that appears to be part of the critical path, but is in fact NOT, is a time bomb waiting to go off, because its failure to show real forecast information will absolutely lead the schedulers to think all is well when it's not. IOW, trust me when I tell you this is a bad idea not grounded in anything like project management best practices.
- wtallis 6y ago
  Ok, so you're just explaining this badly. The problem is not that "manual tasks" exist, but that they can be created with (false) dependencies on other tasks that have flexible scheduling. The way you originally explained Manual Tasks naturally leads to a perfectly valid use case, but apparently MS Project also allows for an invalid usage of that feature.
  - ubermonkey 6y ago
    I'm really not. You're just doing that very-very-HN thing where you assume your surface understanding is sufficient. Manual tasks in MSP are a very bad idea. There is no valid use case for them in critical path scheduling. They exist because some muzzy-headed marketer at Microsoft decided to insert them into the backlog, near as I can tell, despite the cries of actual professionals who use the tool. There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, as I said, tantamount to turning off "math" because you don't like what it shows you.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      I'm finding it really odd how you are still insisting so vehemently that it's a horrible misfeature, and yet you haven't described what you consider the proper way to represent immovable parts of the schedule, and have barely even acknowledged the need for such a thing. Please, tone down the ranting and try to explain this stuff in a useful way. > There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, [...] Can you finish that paragraph in an informative manner? This is Microsoft that we're talking about, so I don't doubt that they could put in a feature that is as horribly misguided as you claim; I've encountered a few myself. But you've really just been repeating your original assertion without justifying it, and that's unhelpful. Getting haughty about it is even less helpful.

vaduz 6y ago

> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task. [...] A "Manual Task" just ignores all that. That's assuming that all your tasks are movable. If there is a task that can only be completed in a certain time period (and there are some activities that you cannot or will not move in any organisation), you plan around it. It will not move just based on your whims or your schedule. And yes, it can mean that your auto-schedule makes no sense if something gets delayed and the task causes your critical path scheduling not to make sense any more, but that is the price you pay in the real world. It's a weird hill to die on. > Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math! Imagine if someone was able to type in a flat, straight up not calculated number in a calculation spreadsheet, overriding any formula that you have put in. The world would end.

ubermonkey 6y ago
You're thinking of this the wrong way (and, not to put too fine a point on it, NOT in the way project management professionals do). A critical path project has a chain of tasks. Task A must complete before B which must complete before C, and so forth. If A is delayed, but you've turned off the critical path engine by making C a "manual task", then C's forecast dates *WILL NOT REFLECT* the anticipated move to the right as a result of A's delay. This is a HUGE problem. You rely on forecast dates being live, and showing true projections of reality (or as true as possible). You can even seat deadlines, and generate alerts if a task isn't going to meet one. But if you nail something down because it quote-unquote can't slip, you're preventing the software from telling you when a slip is coming. That is very, very, very dumb. It's also entirely predictable that someone on HN would try to tell me it isn't. And yes, you can put literal numbers in spreadsheets. But bad things DO happen when people represent values as sums (or as otherwise calculated based on other values) when they are in fact not. That's what "manual tasks" are.

m463 6y ago

> Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic Although finance types would be interested. (and OO programmers)

dragonwriter 6y ago

> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. It certainly can be abused, but at the level you have described it, it seems a straightforward way of modeling things outside of the scheduling control of the project. (Now, if it's allowed to have other tasks as dependencies, and doesn't basically raise a giant red flag if the calculated time of those dependencies pushes past the begin or end of the Manual Task, depending on the kind of dependency, that's a problem with the implementation, but at the level you have described it the concept isn't misplaced.) On one level, needing to use it is a management smell that control may not have been assigned over all things it should be to effectively manage a project, but that's very much a reality. > Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. You mean, if excel let you directly enter a value in a cell, even if headings suggest it's a calculation? I'm pretty sure it's has that feature from say one.