Parent Tasks as Predecessors

[KellieGardner]

I was on a call recently where someone from Workfront mentioned it wasn't good practice to use Parent tasks as Predecessors. 

We do this pretty regularly since often times the tasks nested under a parent all need to be completed in order for the next tasks to start. So, instead of listing every single task as the predecessor we have just done the parent task. Doing it this way will also encompass any ad-hoc tasks that might be added after the fact when the project is in progress.

Does anyone have any insight into why this might not be a good practice?

Example:

Task Number	Task Name	Predecessor
1	Parent Task 1
2	Task A
3	Task B
4	Task C
5	Parent Task 2	1
6	Task D
7	Task E
8	Task F

[KristenS_WF]

I'm not sure what's considered best practice.

We've never used predecessors on parent tasks (either in WF or in our previous systems), as most of our individual tasks are dependent upon the one above it (occasionally we have tasks running in parallel with each other or standalone tasks).

I suppose it could be a problem if (using your example) you were looking at a Parent Task in isolation (like in a report), and it wasn't obvious what the reason for a delay was--i.e., you'd have to investigate which task under the parent predecessor was the hold-up.

I'm curious as to what reasons there are for not doing it, but if it's working for you, I'd say continue.

[KellieGardner]

I'm gonna run some reports to see if the tasks still show as pending predecessors, etc to double check. Thank you.

[Kiersten_K]

We used to do the same thing that you are currently doing, but then we realized that teams were not getting email alerts for when their child tasks was ready so we moved all the predecessors to be on child tasks. It was causing a lot of issues with teams not getting their work done on time as some users liked receiving email notifications versus looking at home or a report.

[KellieGardner]

That is good to know and something I will definitely test and look into. Thank you.

[ChloeWY]

I've had Workfront calculate dates incorrectly when doing this.  We typically give most tasks an As Soon As Possible constraint.  I've found that if the previous parent task and the last task (in your example, giving task 5 the predecessors of task 1 and task 4) seems to make dates calculate correctly.  

I never looked into why this was happening because it's an easy workaround for me.

[RandyRoberts]

Lots of people use Workfront for things that Workfront developers (and now Adobe) never intended and doesn't even know about. If it works well for you, use it. Don't let it spook you.

If it looks good, it IS good!

[KellieGardner]

Agreed and we aren't changing anything just wanted to hear some pros and cons since I've never heard anyone say it before.

[KatherineLa]

While I like the use of parent tasks as predecessors in the way you're showing, I have found it to create a couple points of confusion with end-users.

1. Newer team members don't always understand why tasks 6-8 aren't 'Ready to Start' because they don't always understand the parent-task affect on it's children
2. If you have task reports built that filter out parent tasks, it can sometimes be difficult to see why one isn't ready to go
3. If Parent Task 1 is completed, allowing child tasks 6-8 to go forward but then the PM goes back and inserts another task under Parent Task 1 then the 'ready' status of Parent Task 2's children appears to flip back and forth. This is the biggest hiccup we've had so far, I had two teams REALLY mad at each other until we figured it out. 
4. If you use multiple sets of nested parent/child tasks, this can be really frustrating in creating dependency loops for a less experienced PM. For lengthy project plans, it can be very visually difficult to trace backwards. 
5. If you have a case like your setup, but where 7 is also dependent on 6 and 8 dependent on 7, this also leads to confusion on why a task wasn't showing up in someone's queue as expected. The PMs perceived that they'd marked task 6 complete, so 7 should be ready to go without understanding that parent task 1 was also in the mix. 

Some of those can be handled with enhanced report/view designs, but #3 is the one that's genuinely caused the most issues for us.

[JenL-LAZ]

I've used a parent task as a predecessor to a child task before, but only in a specific, low-stakes project workflow that I own where I know all the child tasks that a parent task encompasses. I probably wouldn't use a parent task as a predecessor in most workflows – one reason being that it can be helpful for people to see each individual predecessor in their task details so they know what has been done before.

So in the example you provided, if you wanted to use Parent Task 1 as a predecessor, I would set it up like this:

Task Number	Task Name	Predecessor
1	Parent Task 1
2	Task A
3	Task B
4	Task C
5	Parent Task 2
6	Task D	1
7	Task E	1
8	Task F	1