Effective Executive's Guide to Project 2000: The Eight Steps for Using Microsoft Project 2000 to Organize, Manage and Finish Critically Important Projects
Authors: Stephen L. Nelson, Pat Coleman, Kaarin Dolliver
Venue:  (2000)

From the Book:0n project managers' office walls, you sometimes see a poster that lists the following five stages in the life cycle of a project: Enthusiasm for the goal Disillusionment with the progress Search for the guilty Persecution of the innocent Praise for the nonparticipants As a friend of ours is fond of saying, "It's like a joke, but it's not funny." Unfortunately, we've all managed projects in the past that could be summarized in these words. If you've picked up this book in the bookstore or if you've just bought this book, you probably have a good reason for doing so. Maybe you've finished managing the project from hell, and you're sure there's a better way. Or maybe you're about to embark on a new project, and your enthusiasm has led you to consider setting it up in Microsoft Project 2000. You might also have used previous versions of Project, and, along with your other preparations for the new millennium, you want your project management tools to be up-to-date. Whatever the reason, if you're a busy executive, if you manage projects (large and complicated or small and compact), and if plowing through a thousand pages of technical jargon sounds more painful than a root canal, this book is for you. In a nutshell, we walk you through the eight steps of project management using Project 2000. Within each step, we summarize, describe, and list the actions you need to take to set up and record information about your project. We don't tell you everything there is to know about Project because you don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of the program to manage your projects effectively. Before we get into the details of whatyou will find in this book, we want to alert you to one of the pitfalls of using project management software. A few years ago, we had a department manager who had become completely enamored with a new project management application. The walls of his office were covered with PERT charts he had printed out and with other charts and diagrams. In essence, this guy spent more time managing his project management program than he did managing his projects. Project 2000 is a tool, not a deliverable. Its purpose is to make your life easier, not to complicate it. And as you'll soon see, this is our approach to using it. You should also know that we've made some assumptions about you as we wrote this book. First, we assume that you are a knowledgeable and informed executive who has some experience using Microsoft Windows and Windows applications. You know how to use the mouse and how to select menu commands and access tools on a toolbar. Second, you're on speaking terms with the aspects of project management, and third, you're acquainted with the accounting practices that are typically involved in project management. That said, however, we also assume that from time to time you may need some detail, and we've included that where appropriate. What Is Project 2000? Microsoft Project 2000 is the latest version of a project management application that has been around since the mid-1980s. You can use it to plan and track the progress of a project using standard approaches to defining projects and organizing the tasks that make up a project, including Gantt charts, PERT charts, and variations on these themes. You can establish a baseline and then track how reality compares with it. You can allocate and monitor people and equipment, and you can track costs and compare them with your budget. In addition, if you have access to a local area network, an intranet, or the Internet, you can use Project tools to communicate with others, post portions of your project on the Web, and send Project files as e-mail attachments. When Should You Use Project 2000? Project 2000 provides most of the tools and techniques you need to manage projects, whether you manage projects with hundreds or thousands of tasks and as many resources or you merely tap into Project's features and functions to think more clearly about organizing simple yet important projects. Regardless of where you fall in this spectrum, you will find that Project delivers five general benefits: Using Project lets you answer the question, "What is a project?" This might seem obvious, but if you've managed any projects at all, you know that clarifying the use of a resource or assigning a task can become complicated if the project itself is not defined well. Using Project helps you answer this fundamental question. Using Project lets you answer the question, "How will the project be accomplished?" If you see your project as one gigantic to-do list of random and disconnected tasks, you're going to be overwhelmed and so is anybody involved in the project. Using Project to organize your to-do list into tasks and subtasks and to identify what depends on what lets you see light at the end of the tunnel. Using Project lets you answer the question, "When will the project and the parts of the project be completed?" Scheduling is essential when managing a project. You need to know when tasks will start and finish so that you can allocate human and equipment resources or perhaps even hire people with special skills. And, unless you have an unlimited amount of time and an unlimited budget (that is, you work in fantasyland), your organization will hold you responsible for the eventual outcome of your project and its completion date. Using Project, you can see at a glance where you are on the schedule and what needs to be done. Using Project lets you answer the question, "Who or what will do the work?" You may need to answer only the preceding three questions, but if careful management of resources is key to the success of your project, you need Project. With Project's resource management features you can ensure that people and equipment are available on time and within budget. Using Project lets you answer the question, "How is my project progressing compared with my plan?" When you set up a project in Project, you also establish a baseline plan that you (and Project) use to see how reality is stacking up against the schedule and the costs. Again, unless you work in fantasyland, this is an important issue. What's in This Book? As we mentioned earlier, this book is organized according to eight steps of project management. In addition to these steps, we've included four appendixes. Here's a rundown of what you'll find in each step and each appendix. Step 1: Learn the Language If you're new to project management, if it's been a long time since you took Project Management 101, or if you need to brush up on some terminology, make reading Step 1 your first step. It's really a project management primer that summarizes the process and then shows you how the process relates to Project 2000. Step 2: Describe the Project In this step, you create a project file, save it, resave it, open it again, and set up date parameters and a calendar for your project. Step 3: Schedule Project Tasks Here's where you take the to-do list out of your head and commit it to bits and bytes. As you begin to set up an example project, you identify and schedule tasks, specify durations (how long each task will take), insert dependencies (specify which tasks depend on others), add milestones and constraints, and resolve any constraint conflicts. Step 4: Identify and Allocate Resources Now it's time to allocate resources (both people and equipment), fine-tune durations, create calendars, review resource allocations, level resources as necessary, assign costs to resources, and share resources if necessary. Step 5: Review Project Organization As your plan shapes up, you can use Project to focus on it in various ways to verify that it will work. First, you can display it in outline form, a time-honored technique for imposing organization. You can then change the timescale, and you can filter your project information to display only certain aspects, such as people, tasks, or costs. You can also sort items and display your project in various views. Step 6: Present Project to Stakeholders A stakeholder is anyone who is involved in or affected by your project. In this step, you print views of your project, generate and print reports about your project, and take a look at how to send your project file to other applications, including Microsoft Excel, Access, and Word. Step 7: Manage Project Progress With your project plan in place, you're ready to start tracking its progress. In this step, you establish a baseline, record completed tasks, update the schedule, set and record costs, compare your progress with your plan, and perform earned value analysis. Step 8: Communicate Project Status In this step, you use the tools that Project provides, such as workgroups, to work online-via a local area network, an intranet, or the Internet. Appendix A: Schedule Project Uncertainties In Project, you can use the Network Diagram view, also called a PERT chart, to explore various scenarios for your project, including best-case, expected-case, and worstcase. This appendix explains how PERT analysis works and shows you how to access the PERT tools in Project. Appendix B: Deal with Project Complexity This appendix explains the tacks you can take when projects become complex. It describes how to simplify dependency relationships, break a large project into smaller projects, use WBS codes to organize projects, and record macros to automate repetitive tasks. Appendix C: Work with Multiple Projects If you're like us, you're seldom working with only one project. This appendix shows you how to manage multiple projects with Project. Appendix D: Customize Project Project has a slick and easy-to-use interface, but you can change this interface to suit the way you work or prefer to work. This appendix describes how to customize toolbars, menus, column width, and more. Conventions Used in This Book To distinguish between Microsoft Project 2000 and your project, we use the word Project (with an uppercase P) to refer to Microsoft Project the program. We use the word project (with a lowercase p) to refer to your project: the building you're constructing, the information system you're developing, or the marketing campaign you're running. To identify screen elements, we capitalize the first letter of each word in the description. This convention looks a bit funny at first, but it makes it more likely that you'll understand some instruction such as "click the Cancel-Avoid The Scheduling Conflict button." You'll also find Notes, Tips, and Warnings, which point out small tidbits of useful information. Pay attention to Warnings; they help you avoid potential problems.