Microsoft Project

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Microsoft Project

• The Basics (Just for Reference)

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What is project management?

• Project management is the process of planning,
  organizing, and managing tasks and resources to
  accomplish a defined objective, usually within
  constraints on time, resources, or cost.
• Most projects share common activities, including
  breaking the project into easily manageable
  tasks, scheduling the tasks, communicating with
  the team, and tracking the tasks as work
  progresses. And all projects consist of three
  major phases
• 1 Build the plan
• 2 Track and manage the project
• 3 Close the project
• The more successful these phases are, the greater
  your chance of a successful project.
• The project triangle

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The project triangle

• Three factors that shape every project
• Time The time to complete the project reflected
  in your project schedule.
• Money The project budget, based on the cost of
  the resources the people, equipment, and
  materials required to do the tasks.
• Scope The goals and tasks of the project and the
  work required to complete them.
• This trio of time, money, and scope is the
  project triangle. Adjusting one of these elements
  affects the other two. While all three elements
  are important, typically one will have the most
  influence on your project.
• The relationship between these elements differs
  in every project and determines the kinds of
  problems you'll encounter and the solutions you
  can implement. Knowing where you're constrained
  or flexible makes it easier to plan and manage
  your project.

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The Microsoft Project database

• How does Microsoft Project help?
• it stores the details about your project
• it uses that information to calculate and
  maintain the project's schedule, costs, and other
  elements, creating a project plan.
• displays results of its calculations immediately.
  
• must enter critical information about all tasks.
  Only then do you see when your project will end
  or the dates when tasks are scheduled.
• Microsoft Project keeps the information you enter
  and the information it calculates in fields,
  which contain specific types of information, such
  as task names or durations. In Microsoft Project,
  each field usually appears in a column.

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Seeing the data you need

• To get to information, use these tools
• Views present a subset of project information in
  a format that's easy to interpret. For example,
  the Gantt Chart displays basic task information
  in columns and a bar graph.
• Tables define the columns displayed.
• Filters focus on specific tasks or resources.
• Like TV channels, each view presents a different
  kind of information. Tables and filters fine-tune
  the information. Just as switching channels
  doesn't delete them, changing views, tables, or
  filters may hide information, but it doesn't
  delete it. It's still in the database and is
  still updated.

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How Microsoft Project schedules

• How does Microsoft Project schedule a task's
  start and finish? Microsoft Project schedules
  each task using the formula durationwork/resource
  effort, where
• Duration is the actual amount of time that passes
  before the task is done.
• Work is the effort required over a period of time
  to do the task.
• Resource effort is the amount of effort resources
  are assigned to the task and their allocation.
• For example, if
• Three painters work two days on a task, with an
  effort of 8 hours per day, the work for each
  resource is 16 hours (2 days 8 hours).
• The total effort of the resources is 24 hours per
  day (3 painters 8 hours).
• The total work for the task is 48 hours (2 days
  8 hours 3 painters).
• The duration is 2 days 48 hours / (3 painters
  8 hours).
• Understanding this formula is important to
  understanding how changes you make to tasks
  affect the project schedule.

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Putting it together

• After you've created the task list and provided
  schedule information, your plan is built. You can
  see a full model of your project, including its
  finish date and the start and finish dates for
  every task. What's next?
• Review critical paths for potential problems. A
  critical path is a series of linked tasks that
  must be done on time for the project to finish on
  time. If any task on a critical path is delayed,
  it can end up delaying the project's finish date.
  
• Evaluate and optimize the plan until you're
  satisfied. Before you start your project and
  periodically during the project, you'll need to
  evaluate and adjust the project plan. Consider
  scope, resources, and schedule.
• Update Microsoft Project about the progress of
  tasks. In return, it'll show you an updated
  project plan. You can update the plan yourself,
  or your team can, with Microsoft Project Central
  or electronic mail. After the plan is updated,
  review it to see the effect of changes. Is the
  project over budget? Is a team member now
  scheduled to work overtime? Is your project going
  to end late?
• Close the project. Evaluate the lessons learned
  and best practices.

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Getting Help

• This tutorial will help you get started, but
  you'll find additional components of Help by
  clicking the Home button or by using the Help
  menu.
• The Project Map. Click through the phases of a
  project to learn about all steps of project
  management, including project management concepts
  and practices, as well as how to use Microsoft
  Project.
• What's New. See What's New to learn about new
  features in Microsoft Project 2000.
• Quick Preview. Get an overview of the key parts
  of Microsoft Project 2000.
• The Office Assistant. The Office Assistant can
  answer your specific questions, leading you to
  the Help topics that best answer your questions.
• Reference. Click the Home button, and then click
  the Reference section for descriptions of all
  available views, tables, and filters all fields
  and project management concepts.
• Contents and Index. Choose Contents and Index
  from the Help menu to view an index of all Help
  topics.

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Create a Plan
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Lesson How do you set up a project?

• The first steps in creating a schedule are
  starting a new file, designating a project start
  or finish date, and entering general project
  information.

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Project Information
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Create a new project
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Enter key project information

• Each project has a unique set of ingredients the
  tasks involved, the people who do them, and the
  project goal. To help remember and communicate
  important details, enter information about the
  project and refer to it when necessary.
• 1.On the File menu, click Properties, and then
  click the Summary tab.
• 2.Enter any information you'd like about your
  project, such as the people who will manage it
  and maintain the project file, the project goal,
  any known limitations that may make it difficult
  to reach that goal, and other general project
  notes.
• 3. Click OK.
• Tip   To look for a menu command that doesn't
  appear, click the arrows at the bottom of the
  menu. The menu expands to show more commands. You
  can also expand a menu by double-clicking it.

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Properties
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Set up the project calendar

• You can change the project calendar to reflect
  the working days and hours for everyone on your
  project. The calendar defaults are Monday through
  Friday, 800 A.M. to 500 P.M., with an hour off
  for lunch.
• You can specify nonworking times, such as
  weekends and evenings, as well as special days
  off, such as holidays.

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Set up the project calendar

• 1 On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.
• 2 On the Tools menu, click Change Working Time.
• 3 Select a date on the calendar.
• To change one day of the week for the entire
  calendar, for example, to have Fridays end at
  400 P.M., click the abbreviation for that day at
  the top of the calendar.
• To change all working days, for example, to begin
  working days Tuesday through Friday at 900 A.M.,
  click the abbreviation (such as T for Tuesday)
  for the first working day of the week. Hold down
  SHIFT, and then click the abbreviation for the
  last working day of the week (such as F for
  Friday).
• 4 Click Nonworking time for days off, or
  Nondefault working time to change the hours
  worked.
• 5 If you clicked Nondefault working time in step
  3, type the times you want work to start in the
  From boxes, and the times you want work to end in
  the To boxes.
• 6Click OK.

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How do you enter and organize a task list?

• Enter tasks and their durations
• A typical project is a series of related tasks. A
  task represents an amount of work with a clear
  deliverable it should be short enough to track
  its progress regularly. Tasks should generally be
  between one day and two weeks long.
• Enter tasks in the order they will occur. Then
  estimate how long it will take to complete each
  task, and enter your estimate as the duration.
  Microsoft Project uses durations to calculate the
  amount of work to be done on the task.
• Note   Don't enter dates in the Start and Finish
  fields for each task. Microsoft Project
  calculates the start and finish dates based on
  how the tasks are related, information you'll
  enter in the next lesson.

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Organize a task list

• 1 On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.
• 2 In the Task Name field, type a task name, and
  then press TAB. Microsoft Project enters an
  estimated duration of one day for the task
  followed by a question mark.
• 3 In the Duration field, type the amount of time
  each task will take in months, weeks, days,
  hours, or minutes, not counting nonworking time.
  You can use the following abbreviations months
  mo
• weeks wdays dhours hminutes mNote 
•   To show an estimated duration, type a question
  mark after the duration.
• 4 Press ENTER.

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Task List
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Create a milestone

• A milestone is a task you use to identify
  significant events in your schedule, such as the
  completion of a major phase. When you enter a
  duration of zero days for a task, Microsoft
  Project displays the milestone symbol on the
  Gantt Chart at the start of that day.
• 1 In the Duration field, click the duration of
  the task you want to make a milestone, and then
  type 0d.
• 2 Press ENTER.
• Note   Although a task with a duration of 0 is
  automatically marked as a milestone, you can make
  any task a milestone. To mark a task as a
  milestone, click the task in the Task Name field.
  Click Task Information , click the Advanced tab,
  and then select the Mark task as milestone check
  box.

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Creating Milestone
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Create a recurring task

• Recurring tasks are tasks that repeat regularly,
  such as weekly meetings. A recurring task can
  take place daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. You
  can specify the duration of each occurrence, when
  it will occur, and for how long or how many times
  it should occur.

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Create a recurring task

• 1 In the Task Name field, click the row below
  where you want the recurring task to appear.
• 2 On the Insert menu, click Recurring Task.
• 3 In the Task Name box, type the task name.
• 4 In the Duration box, type or select the
  duration of a single occurrence of the task.
• 5 Under Recurrence pattern, click Daily, Weekly,
  Monthly, or Yearly.
• 6 To the right of Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or
  Yearly, specify the task frequency.
• 7 Under Range of recurrence, type a start date in
  the Start box and then select End after or End
  by.
• If you selected End after, type the number of
  occurrences for the task.
• If you selected End by, type the date you want
  the recurring task to end.
• 8Click OK.

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Recurring Task
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Recurring Task
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Structure tasks into a logical outline

• Outlining helps organize your tasks into more
  manageable chunks. You can indent related tasks
  under a more general task, creating a hierarchy.
  The general tasks are called summary tasks the
  indented tasks below the summary task are
  subtasks. A summary task's start and finish dates
  are determined by the start and finish dates of
  its earliest and latest subtasks.
• To organize your outline, use outline buttons

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Indent
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Edit a task list

• As you create a task list, you will probably want
  to break large tasks into smaller tasks and
  rearrange tasks. You may want to copy, delete, or
  move tasks in your project.
• You can also easily rearrange project phases in
  an outlined schedule. When you move or delete a
  summary task, the subtasks associated are moved
  or deleted as well.

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Edit a task list

• 1 In the ID field (the leftmost field), select
  the task you want to copy, move, or delete.
• To select a row, click the task ID number.
• To select a group of adjacent rows, hold down
  SHIFT, and then click the first and last ID
  numbers of the group.
• To select several nonadjacent rows, hold down
  CTRL, and then click the task ID numbers.
• 2 Copy, move, or delete the task.
• To copy the task, click Copy.
• To move the task, click Cut.
• To delete the task, press DELETE.
• 3 To move the selection you cut or repeat the
  selection you copied, select the rows where you
  want to paste it.
• Be sure to select entire rows.
• 4 Click Paste .
• If there is information in the destination row,
  the new rows will be inserted above the
  destination row.