CEO interruptions causes delays

It seems like you could place an additional row for the same task(s), with revised dates due to interruptions so that the original and modified due dates could be easily compared in the Gannt Chart.

I imagine you could put a duplicate row (with no predecessors) right beneath the task that was delayed and just use actual dates in the normal start and finish column to show that the task was delayed. I would preface the task with Affected Time  - or something like that so that they could see when they were supposed to You just need to indicate somehow that the actual times are being affected by external tasks. 

This is why baselining is vital in traditional project management methodologies and another example of why Smartsheet needs to put this on the development roadmap to be considered a proper PPM tool.

Hi,

If you have a "before" picture of your project with your tasks linked together to create a critical path (i.e. the steps that absolutely have to be done in order and at the times specified to deliver the project to the agreed schedule), I'd export that to an Excel spreadsheet and archive it. This then becomes your agreed baseline.

For any ad-hoc tasks the CEO or anyone else asks the team to complete outside the project scope, add these in on the next available row between your last completed task (e.g. Row 48) assigned to the resource in question and the first in progress or scheduled to start task (e.g. Row 50) for the same resource. Then link your new task to row 48 and the task below it to the new task on Row 49. If you are not allocating tasks to resources, then simply pick the last task completed and the next to be started.

This will essentially slot the work the CEO has asked your team to complete in the middle of the active project tasks (which it sounds like is happening). By linking the tasks, you have configure Smartsheet to calculate dates based on a critical path. If the newly created task has a 2 week duration, you are showing that Row 50 will also start 2 weeks later because it has to wait for your new tasks to be completed before it can begin. If you've connected the tasks, key milestones and the project end date will also be delayed.

If you have allocated resources and your CEO is asking people to squeeze the work across the line in parallel with existing project tasks, you can show how the resource will be over allocated if they are doing 2 things at once.