{"id":3103,"date":"2009-09-17T01:38:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T08:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=3103"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:30:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:30:29","slug":"tools-techniques-microsoft-project-best-practices-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=3103","title":{"rendered":"Tools & Techniques \u2013 Microsoft Project Best Practices (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tracking
Tracking Gantt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Project Conference 2009 continues through this week in Phoenix, AZ.\u00a0 As Microsoft prepares for the release of Project 2010, it\u2019s a good time to reflect on some additional best practices that project managers should keep in mind when using their current version of Microsoft Project.<\/p>\n

Know the Limitations of Critical Path Methodology <\/strong>\u2013 CPM was developed by the DuPont Corporation over 50 years ago as an effective method to identify activities with no tolerance for delay.\u00a0 You can use the Gantt Chart Wizard function to display the critical path in Microsoft Project.\u00a0 One significant limitation with the Critical Path Method is that it does not account for resource constraints, only task dependencies.\u00a0 Project managers who are dealing with limited resources often find that not all projects can be managed to the critical path schedule.\u00a0 Incorporating the Resource Leveling feature can help a project manager identify resource bottlenecks in addition to the critical path.\u00a0 Using the Leveling Delay column and the critical path helps to pinpoint which resources and tasks are the ones to focus on first when optimizing the schedule.<\/p>\n

Learn to Compress Schedules Effectively <\/strong>\u2013 Project managers are always trying to save time and often utilize many schedule compression techniques.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to practice each technique in Microsoft Project in order to become as efficient as possible when optimizing the timeline.\u00a0 One of the best places to start optimizing is in resource reassignment.\u00a0 When working in a resource constrained environment, reassigning a leveled critical task to an available resource is a great way to save time.\u00a0 Other compression techniques include applying concurrency (negative lag in Microsoft Project) and shortening duration.\u00a0 Both of these methods should include documentation (I always recommend on Task Notes) to identify the assumption(s) made in order to fast track or crash the activities.<\/p>\n

Achieving Consensus and Understanding Baselines <\/strong>\u2013 This is always an interesting topic.\u00a0 Saving a baseline in Microsoft Project is a simple mouse click \u2013 a 5 minute feature review to go over the menu command and which fields are affected.\u00a0 But it represents a fundamentally important point \u2013 the consensus achieved between project sponsor and the team over what will be delivered, who will do the work and what is the agreed upon schedule and budget.\u00a0 The project manager is responsible for reaching this agreement as a result of the project planning process.\u00a0 Setting a baseline essentially takes a snapshot of the planning data and saves it for future reference in the tracking and control phase of the project.\u00a0 The importance of this step within the process of using the tool cannot be understated.<\/p>\n

Controlling Projects by Variance Analysis <\/strong>\u2013Here\u2019s where Microsoft Project shines.\u00a0 Once an effective planning process is completed and a good baseline is set, the Tracking Gantt View and Tracking Table can be utilized to collect actual status and provide quality decision making data for corrective actions.\u00a0 Fields like Actual Start, Actual Duration and Remaining Duration are far more effective than % Complete.\u00a0 Team members are much more accountable to task updates when asked for remaining duration or work as opposed to % complete.\u00a0 Good project managers will go around and gather actual status from team members prior to any status meetings and then use the team meetings for more important activities like problem solving, risk management, scope change control and additional planning.<\/p>\n

Supporting Multiple Project Managers <\/strong>\u2013Whether it\u2019s a large well established PMO or a single project manager who wants to improve the way projects are managed in the organization, there are many best practices in supporting a group of project managers.\u00a0 The easiest place to start is by standardizing many of the useful objects within Project and replicating them to other plans or templates with the Organizer feature.\u00a0 These objects usually include tables, filters, views and calendars (e.g. to establish working time for various countries).\u00a0 Organizing a regular company user\u2019s group meeting can be an effective way to share lessons learned and keep everyone on the same page.\u00a0 Other useful techniques that support project management in the enterprise include Shared Resources, usage of master and subprojects, project-to-project dependencies and portfolio resource management.<\/p>\n

For a more in-depth look at Microsoft Project Best Practices at UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley check out the Elective Course link in the left menu for Managing Projects with Microsoft Project.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0*** NOTE: Space is still available for the next class starting\u00a0 Sat 9\/19 ***<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coming up next time, a closer look at\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0 PMI and the PMP credential \u2013 why it\u2019s finally time for many project managers to consider certification.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.\u00a0 Your comments are always welcome!<\/p>\n

– Jim Park, PMP<\/strong>
\nInstructor, Project and Program Management certificate program
\nUCSC Extension in Silicon Valley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project Conference 2009 continues through this week in Phoenix, AZ.\u00a0 As Microsoft prepares for the release of Project 2010, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,5,10,27,1],"tags":[39,1373,15,42,319,338,825,132],"class_list":["post-3103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-goals","category-priorities-2","category-time-management","category-cost","category-training-certification","category-miscellaneous","tag-best-practices","tag-goals","tag-pmo","tag-priorities","tag-professional-development","tag-project-management-tools","tag-reddit","tag-resources"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14296,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions\/14296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}