3. Plan tasks and their duration

Tasks are the activities performed within a project. As project manager, it's your job to identify and add tasks, modify their properties and estimate their duration.

When you add tasks, they may not be in the best order to manage them. You'll need to organize them by using and linking summary tasks and subordinate tasks.

In MS Project, an indented task becomes a subordinate task of the task above it, which becomes a summary task.

When organizing project tasks, you need to plan the project plan in one of two ways: top-down or bottom-up.

With the top-down method, you first identify the main phases, then break them down into individual tasks. The top-down method gives you a vision of the plan as soon as you decide on the major phases.

With the bottom-up method, you...