Recurring Tasks in Microsoft Project

I recently received an email regarding the use of reccurring tasks in Microsoft Project.
The question was "What are the pros and cons of using a recurring task in Microsoft Project versus scheduling individual tasks for a weekly status meeting?"

My response was I don't use them.  Here's why:

My preference is to avoid recurring tasks for a weekly status meeting in a project schedule. The main reason is these are support tasks that don't fall on a project's critical path. I've never missed a launch date or postponed a launch because I skipped a team status meeting during a project launch. Depending on the complexity of the launch, you likely have status meetings every day if not multiple times during a given day.

I prefer to setup my project management governance routines to include a weekly status meeting using Microsoft Outlook or corporate calendar system. Adding recurring activities for a status meeting only adds to the administrative burden and requires the project manager to track additional tasks that don't impact the project's critical path.  If your organization has such a requirement then a recurring task will be helpful in your resource pool utilization.

If you still want to track these meetings, then I would create a separate section of the project plan that doesn't have any dependencies on the actual tasks required to complete the work. In this case, a reoccuring task which occurs weekly on a given date is fine. Some organizations try to tie every hour of every day to their project schedule.

From an administrative perspective, I prefer to estimate the available resource utlizations for each resource (i.e. 80%) and I apply that utilization to my schedule. Remember the project schedule is just a model of predicted tasks so I try to estimate time as best as possible. However, I don't want to track every administrative meeting in my schedule.

I do add the key meetings that are required to pass a milestone or tollgate to to the schedule as these do represent sign-off and approval.  Obtaining customer sign-off prior to launch is a worthwhile meeting that should be on your critical path!

Sound off with your opinion

What's your opinion?  How do you handle status meetings in a project schedule?
Feel free to email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your suggestions.

How to Add a Recurring Task in Microsoft Project

For those of you who want to add a recurring task in Microsoft Project, you can follow this simple tutorial at: