Objective
This two day course trains the student to use Microsoft Project 2003 in managing projects in compliance with the PMI PMBOK® Guide standards.
Day 1 of the course introduces the operations required to create a project file, set up project calendars, enter a work breakdown structure into MS Project, estimate the durations of tasks, assign and level resources, and achieve an optimum schedule.
Day 2 of the course introduces more advanced topics in MS Project, including importing and exporting data from or to other MS applications, the use of advanced reporting functions, customizing views, tables, and fields, updating progress during project execution, and setting up templates to permit re-use of a good project plan.
The course includes 60 hands-on exercises to reinforce learning exactly how to do each step.
Who Should Attend
The course is suited to those with some experience in projects who will be using Microsoft Project 2003 in their project management duties.
Course Outline
DAY1
Kickoff
· Course Introduction, review of content, basic schedule.
Introduction
· MS Project Environment, basic usage
o Explore the environment. Areas of the screen, the guide, help.
o Setting up project calendars to assist in scheduling.
Project Planning Sequence
· Review the PMI Planning Processes.
Identify the work to be done.
· Discuss the PMI approach to building a WBS.
o Defining scope. Deliverable based WBS. Break down the deliverables of the project.
o Defining the activities to create each deliverable.
o Estimate the duration of each activity. Discuss duration, work, units and their differences in MSP..
o Estimation techniques: Parametric (like function point), analogous (like similar work – historical information), Delphi technique, brainstorming, PERT estimates, standard deviations.
o The importance of defining all the work.
o As you define each activity, think about the resources required to do it.
· Enter the WBS and Activity List into MSP.
· Sequence the activities based on relationships. Relationships become the basis of building the schedule. Don’t serialize activities that can be done in parallel. Discuss types of relationships, lag time, lead time.
· Constraining tasks. Why do it? Why avoid it?
· Defining deliverables in the project plan file.
Determine the resources required to do the work.
· Resource planning and cost estimating in the PMI process.
· Create the resource definitions.
o Add resources to the team manually.
o Using the central resource pool in Project Server.
o Entering the material resources into MSP.
o The use of resource calendars to help deal with constraints.
o Assigning resources to tasks.
o Discussion of task type and its interaction with resource assignment.
o Leveling resources. Approaches to resource leveling.
The project schedule. Definition of the critical path as determining project length.
· Finding the critical tasks in the project.
· Shorten the duration of the project.
o The concept of slack.
o “Crashing”: Assigning additional resources to shorten project length.
o “Fast Tracking”: paralleling tasks to shorten the project. Easing relationships or sub-dividing tasks.
o Cutting scope to shorten the project.
Saving the project file.
· The project baseline. Why is a baseline important? What does it mean?
Reviewing the project
· Display project information using MS Project.
Day Two – Advanced Topics.
Creating a custom report using the information stored in the project file.
· Creating custom fields and reports from the MS Project file.
· Using filters to limit the data included in a report or view. Looking at critical path information.
Things MS Project won’t do, so you must go elsewhere. Graphic displays.
· Exporting data to other tools, such as Excel or Word. Importing data from other sources.
Updating the project during execution. Using MS Project to track your progress and cost performance.
· Enter task progress.
o Alternative ways to update. Entering actual costs and times. Usage of Percent Complete. Physical Percent Complete.
o Earned Value. What is it? How to use it.
· Splitting a task that is interrupted. Getting on with other work.
· Rescheduling a task to maintain resource continuity.
· Interim baselines. How to use them. What MS Project does to save a baseline.
· Adding links to documents to your project file.
Reusing and standardizing things in MS Project.
· Project Plan templates.
o Create a template from an existing project plan.
· Custom views.
o Custom view usage. Personal vs, Organizational.
o Making custom views available to other project plans. The global template.
o Making other custom elements (fields, reports, etc.) available to other plans.
Sharing resources.
· The resource pool. The enterprise resource pool in Project Server. Sharing resources between two projects.
Creating a Master Project Plan.
· What is it? Why do it?
· How to create it.
Change management.
· Keeping baselines, versions of the plan.
· Tracking reasons for changes.
· Managing the project contingency. Using a dummy task for contingency to maintain budget information.
Ongoing use of the course materials for self-study, and reviewing.