A Multi-Project Environment is made up of two or more Subprojects that contain Handoffs. The Subprojects are integrated together and their Handoffs are connected to form the Master Project. Creating a Master Project and Subprojects let you break down a large project and delegate its parts to the necessary people, giving authority and responsibility of those parts to different schedulers/teams.
What is a Master Project?
Think of the Master Project as a collection of consolidated projects that contain dependencies (predecessor and successor relationships) or Handoffs between each other. Projects that are used to make up a Master Project Schedule are called Subprojects. The Master Project is the file is used to perform program level analysis and usually serves as the schedule deliverable if the program schedule must be submitted.
What is a Subproject?
A Subproject is a part or section of the Program schedule that has been separated into it's own file and can be combined with the other Subproject files to produce the Master Project. Breaking down a large program into smaller Subprojects can be a useful technique to manage the schedule. It allows Microsoft Project users have ownership and work simultaneously on different parts of the overall Program Schedule and helps to prevent the project file from becoming bloated, slow, and hard to work with.
What is a Handoff?
A Handoff is a dependency (predecessor/successor) relationship that exists between two or more separate project files.These relationships must cross project boundaries in order to be considered a Handoff. As an example, imagine two project schedules, Project A and Project B. Both projects are separate .mpp files. Project B has some tasks that are dependent on tasks from Project A and vise-versa. Thesedependency points between the different projects are Handoffs.
Here are some other common names for Handoffs:
Cross-Project Dependencies
External Dependencies
Givers/Receivers
Inputs/Outputs
Makers/Takers
The Handoff Method or Giver/Receiver Method is the process of identifying, marking, and coding Handoffs between Subprojects.
