Loosely Dependant Projects

You might need to create dependencies between loosely dependant projects or even un-related projects which still can have several points of impact / dependency.

Use Shortcuts to critical milestones or tasks of the different project that you want to track. You will then be able to view progress of the original work items of the other project directly in your project view, either on the roadmap or in the work plan.

You can then use Progress Impact  and Schedule Dependency  links to create the appropriate completion and scheduling dependencies between those shortcuts and different tasks or milestones in your project.

Example of the Loosely Related Projects

Example 1

Let’s use an example of the same New Product Development (NPD) project from the  Tightly Dependant Projects section. We all know that not only Engineering department works to introduce new products to the market.

Marketing department needs to perform the required research and come up with the requirements and prepare the appropriate collateral for the new product. Sales needs to be trained on the new product, prepare sales plan and approach customers.

Marketing and Sales projects can run separately from the Engineering project, but have a few very important dependency points:

• Engineering needs Marketing requirements in order to do their work
• Sales and Marketing need the results of Engineering activities to ramp up New Product

 Example 2

Let’s continue with our “house renovation” project example from the  Tightly Dependant Projects section.

Suppose that Main contractor has the team that designs and creates standard blocks for kitchens.

This team works totally independently from the teams that fulfill implementation projects for specific customers, still have to synch the plans with these projects. Implementation projects depend on the readiness of the standard blocks.

We would recommend implementing such types of dependencies using shortcuts mechanism.