Adjust your project plan by shortening or stopping projects in the Gantt chart of the Portfolio Designer.

• Required User Rights
• Project Allocation Unit
• Snapping by Zoom Level
• Shortening Projects
• Shrinking Projects
• Stopping Projects

Required User Rights

To shorten or stop a project, you need the following rights:

• Under Edit Project and Programs, you need at least the Projects with Logged-In User as Project Manager option
• Change Project Schedule
• Edit Plan of Record or the edit rights for the selected scenario

Project Allocation Unit

The unit used to display allocations, depends on the selected project allocation unit.

See the Project Allocation Unit section of the Portfolio Designer Settings article for details.

Snapping by Zoom Level

Shrinking a project by using the Stretch option uses the same grid as for moving projects and programs, depending on your zoom level. When shortening by month or week, the end date will snap to the end of each month or week as well as to the original end date.

Shortening Projects

To shorten a project, you can either shrink it or stop it. Shrinking a project will shorten the length of the project and distribute existing allocations, milestones and financial events over the shortened time period. Stopping a project will finish the project at the selected date and cut off all allocations and milestones after this date.

Shrinking Projects

If your teams can invest more time than previously planned, you can shrink the project or project segment duration while keeping the amount of allocations.
The function for shrinking is called Stretch because it can also be used for stretching a project:

Proceed as follows to shrink a project or project segment:

1. Select the desired project or project segment in the Gantt chart.
2. Hover over the arrow at the end of the project bar to open the project extension menu and select Stretch.
3. Click the arrow at the end of the project bar and holding the mouse button, drag the bar left to shrink the project or project segment as desired.
4. While you drag, Meisterplan shows you the new project duration and the new overall allocation, as well as the difference between the new and old values:
   
5. Release the mouse button.

Stretching has the following effects on financial events, milestones and allocations:

• Financial events with custom dates remain unchanged.
• Milestones and associated financial events will be shifted such that their relative distance to the start and finish stays the same; i.e., they will be moved to earlier dates.
• Allocations will remain the same with respect to the total hours assigned to the project. Therefore, shrinking a project will increase the allocation per time period, expressed by the FTE value, because the same amount of hours is distributed over a shorter time period.

Project segments may be shrunk individually:

• Shrinking a project segment will only affect that segment and its financial events, milestones and allocations.
• By stretching the first of two project segments, you can merge them again.

Stopping Projects

You may stop a project at any given date. This will set the project end to the selected stopping date and delete any milestones and allocations after that date.

Please note that financial events at the finish or at deleted milestones will be moved to earlier dates when stopping a project:

• Financial events with custom dates remain unchanged.
• Milestones after the selected date will be deleted.
• Allocations after the selected date will be deleted.

Proceed as follows to stop a project:

1. In the project's Gantt bar, right-click the desired date for stopping to open the context menu.
2. Select Stop at [date].
   
   
3. Confirm the stop.

• The project will be stopped at the selected date. Any milestones and allocations after that date will be dropped.
• You can also stop a project directly at a milestone. To do so, right-click the milestone to open the associated context menu and select Stop at Milestone.
  

You can also stop a project by opening the project details and changing the project's finish date to an earlier date. Any milestones and allocations after that date will also be dropped.

Result