Ben,

If you really wanted to resolve the negative float without analysing early start, early finish or whatsoever. this is the best way you can do.

1. Open file, select project overview.
2. Replace the date " Project must finish by" same the date of "early finish" under the date Project must finish by.

You have to remember negative float is from the heavy constrain you putted in your program.Just keep in your mind that the Project must finish by is the contract completion date to our client. once you filled up that date "project must finish by" its consedered heavy contrain and once your project exceeded on that date the result will be negative float.In short negative float is indacation that your project is already delayed.

Just try it and see the result

I hope it can help you

Albert

Hi Ben,

As Trevor stated, scheduling applications use the Critical Path Method to determine ES, EF, LS, LF, Free Float and Total Float. It traditionally forms the basis of the Gantt chart, although many Planners / Project Managers never use it and it’s a skill that is being lost. Primarily because most, if not all, of the scheduling tools currently on the market are automated.

Like many things worth knowing, it may be a difficult concept to understand at first, but if you want to have an insight into the workings of your application of choice, it may be worthwhile investing a little bit of time working with Network Diagrams until you feel comfortable with how they’re calculated.

After you have had some exposure to this method it won’t take long until you grasp the theory behind the practice.

In answer to your question, Start Dates are calculated by either constraints or precedence and Finish Dates are calculated by constraints or duration.

As an example, if Task A starts on 23 Jun 08 and has a duration of 5 days it will finish on 27 Jun 08.

Late Start and Late Finish Dates are calculated in a similar fashion but they also take into account Free Float. Free Float is the amount of time a task can be delayed without affecting its successor and is the difference between the Late Finish and Early Finish.

Early Dates and Late Dates are established using forward passes (left to right along a Network) and backward passes (right to left along a Network).

Using the same example as above, but including 5 days Free Float. Task A Start and Finish Dates would remain the same but there is capacity to soak up 5 days delay without affecting the next task. Therefore the Latest Start Date is 30 Jun 08 and if you add the duration to that the Latest Finish Date would be 04 Jul 08.

If there wasn’t any Free Float then the Latest Start and Latest Finish Dates would be the same as the Start and Finish Dates.

Total Float is the amount of a Task can be delayed without affecting the Project Finish Date.

As Trevor also states in Post #4, the likely cause of your negative Total Float is due to a ‘Hard’ constraint in your schedule i.e. one that is fixed and will not move.

Regards,

Darren