How to plan a project with phases and dependencies, and what to do when a date slips

Most projects don't fail on the big decisions. They slip one task at a time: the plumber comes three days late, the tiling can't start, the opening date stays where it was on paper, and nobody notices until the week before.

A to-do list can't warn you, because it doesn't know that one task waits for another. A plan with dependencies does. Here is how to build one in Projects, and what to do on the day a date slips.

1. Break the work into phases

Start with the big blocks, not the tasks: for a shop refit, Strip-out and services, Finishes and Opening. Then fill each phase with its tasks.

In Projects you can go down three levels, and a phase takes its dates and its progress from what's inside it. You never type a phase's dates: they follow its tasks.

Add a milestone for each date that matters to someone outside the team: the opening, the launch, the day the client signs off. Milestones are what people will ask you about.

2. Give each task its time

A task can have exact dates, or just a duration ("3 days") when you don't know yet when it will start. That's often the honest answer, and the dependencies will place it for you.

3. Link what waits for what

This is the step that turns a list into a plan. On the Gantt chart, drag the end of one task's bar onto another to link them. There are four kinds:

• Finish to start: tiling starts when plumbing ends. The usual one.
• Start to start: painting starts when plastering starts, side by side.
• Finish to finish: the deep clean can't end before the shop fitting ends.
• Start to finish: the old system can't stop until the new one starts.

Each link can carry a lag in days, such as two days for the plaster to dry. And if a link would make a loop, Projects refuses it and tells you which tasks would go round in a circle.

4. Read the critical path

Once tasks are linked, Projects works out the critical path: the chain of tasks that sets your end date. It's outlined on the chart. Any delay on it moves the end date; a task off it has slack, days it can slip without moving anything else.

That tells you where to look each morning. A yellow line marks today: a critical task that crosses it unfinished is the one to deal with first.

5. When a date slips

Sooner or later it happens. The painter can't start until Monday, so painting ends three days later and now overlaps the shop fitting.

Projects doesn't quietly move your plan. It flags the conflict and leaves the decision to you. Adjust dates then shows you what would change, such as "3 tasks would be pushed later", before anything does. Apply it, or change something else first: split a task, bring in a second painter, or accept that the opening moves.

That way the plan stays something you decided, not something that drifted.

With your AI assistant

If you've connected an AI assistant to Cronum Work, you can do all of the above in your own words, and it uses Projects to do the maths:

Set up the website relaunch from these notes. We launch on 12 June, and build can't start until the design is signed off.

The painter can't start until Monday, so painting slips 3 days. What else moves? Don't change anything yet.

Why can't we start the payments integration?

For the second one, the assistant answers with what would move and waits for your OK before it applies anything.

Keep everyone in step

• Invite people by email to manage, take part or only view, and give each task one person.
• Whoever has a blocked task hears about it when what it waits for is done, so the handover doesn't depend on someone remembering.
• For clients, turn on the project's public page: they see the progress and the target date without asking you.

A checklist to start

1. Phases first, then tasks, and a milestone for every date someone is waiting for.
2. Durations where you don't know the dates yet.
3. Every "can't start until…" as a link, with its lag.
4. A look at the critical path each morning.
5. When something slips: look at what would move, then decide.