Planning and Scheduling Your Project Using Microsoft Project 2003

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Planning and Scheduling Your

Project Using

Microsoft Project 2003

Sridhar Pandurangiah

Director - Engineering [email protected]

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Agenda

• Project File

• Project Calendar

• Creating Tasks and WBS

• Milestones

• Recurring Tasks • Dependencies

• Lead and Lag times • Constraints • Deadlines • Split Tasks • Resources • Contouring • Over allocations • Cost • Optimise Plan • Earned Value Management

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Create a Project File

• Create a new file

• Choose one of the templates • Complete the summary tab • Complete Project Information

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Change Project Calendar

• Working time • Week starting

(middle east projects will have their

weekends on

Thursday and Friday) • Holidays

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View Options

• Change the date format to that used by the client

• Change the currency symbol, decimal

digits to the currency you would use to

track the project cost.

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General Options

• Specify the user

name, standard and overtime billing rates • For Whizible users

– Uncheck “Advice From Planning Wizard”

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Schedule Options

• Change the duration from days to hours • For Whizible users

– Uncheck “Show Scheduling

messages”

– Uncheck “Tasks will always honour their constraint dates”

• Click “Set as Default”

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Enter tasks and Duration

• % Complete, WBS, Task name, work, duration, start, finish,

predecessors, resource names

• Enter tasks and duration – Don’t enter the start and finish dates. Also enter the notes.

– Elapsed Duration (ed) is calendar duration • Indent tasks to create a

logical outline

• Break large tasks to smaller tasks

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Enter tasks and Duration

• For Whizible users

– Use the “Text 30” field to define Task Type

– Use the following priority

• Low (0 to 400)

• Medium (401 to 600) • High (601 to 900) • NULL (901 – 1000) –

Ignored by Whizible

• You can assign a “Task Calendar” to a task. Then the option “Scheduling ignores resource

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Identify Milestones

• Identify significant events as milestones [Creating a task of 0 days marks it as a milestone] • Indicated by  • Change Icon

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Create Recurring Tasks

• Weekly team meetings, SQA reviews, Weekly Progress Reporting all recur at predetermined intervals

• Roll Gantt Bar to

Summary – Specific task information defined in the Gantt Bar Styles rolls up and shows in the

summary task

• Hide Task Bar – Hides the Bar

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Specify task dependencies

• Automatically a finish –to-start dependency is created

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Task Dependencies

• You can specify start-to-start, finish-to-finish or start-to-finish

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Lead and Lag Times

• Overlap tasks or enter lead / lag times

• Lag times are +ve values while lead times are –ve values • Lag and lead can be entered as a % or absolute values

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Constraints

• Set specific start or finish dates

• Specify a start date - start no earlier than

(SNET) constraint is set • Specify a finish date

-finish no earlier than (FNET) constraint is set • Use this feature

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Add Deadlines

• Deadlines don’t affect scheduling mechanisms

• Microsoft Project will inform you that a task will finish past its deadline. You then have the option of adjusting the schedule to meet that deadline.

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Split tasks

• If work on the task is interrupted and then resumes later in the schedule

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Assign Resources

• Specify type of resource work / material

• Specify the number of resource units available for this resource in the max. Units field, as a percentage. E.G., Type 300% to indicate three full-time units of a particular resource.

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Specify Resource Groups

• For each material resource (supplies consumed

throughout the project), in the material label field, type a measurement unit for the material resource, such as ton. • Resource groups can be used for sorting, filtering, or

grouping tasks by resources belonging to a particular group. You can use groups to indicate the department a human resource belongs to or to specify accounting codes for billing purposes.

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Change work schedule for

Resource

• Modify the individual resource calendar

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Specify Costs for Resource

• Specify the Standard and Overtime rates

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Specify Workgroup

Information and availability

for Resource

• Use this to specify long absences e.g. sabbatical leaves • Independent of resource calendar

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New Base Calendar

• If a group of

resources has the same special

working hours

and days off, you can create a new base calendar for them

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Assign Resources

• Support for Active

Directory / Address Book / Microsoft Project Server

• Assign multiple resources at once (CTRL and drag)

• Replace a resource by

choosing the resource and clicking replace then

reassign a fresh resource • A Valid work value can be

entered then units = entered work/duration • Automatic assignment of

resources can be disabled in Tools / Options / General tab

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Fix the task duration

• If a task is 8 hrs duration and 8 hrs work with a single resource adding a second resource

reduces the duration to 4 hours (effort

driven)

• Turn this feature off to increase the work to 16 hours

• Turn off globally in Options / Schedule

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Plan Optimisation

• Duration Compression

– Crashing

– Fast Tracking

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Edit resource assignments

(Assignment Contours)

• Effective way to remove over allocation (shown in red) • Just drag and drop tasks under the resource

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Predefined Assignment Contours

CONTOURS _SEGMENTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Flat 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Back Loaded 10% 15% 25% 50% 50% 75% 75% 100% 100% 100% Front Loaded 100% 100% 100% 75% 75% 50% 50% 25% 15% 10% Double Peak 25% 50% 100% 50% 25% 25% 50% 100% 50% 25% Early Peak 25% 50% 100% 100% 75% 50% 50% 25% 15% 10% Late Peak 10% 15% 25% 50% 50% 75% 100% 100% 50% 25% Bell 10% 20% 40% 80% 100% 100% 80% 40% 20% 10% Turtle 25% 50% 75% 100% 100% 100% 100% 75% 50% 25%

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Automatic Resource Levelling

• Levelling Order

– Standard : Considers links, slack, dates and priorities

– ID Only : Delays task with the highest ID

– Priority : Priority of tasks takes precedence

• Level only within the available slack • Adjust Individual assignments on a task : To level only over-allocated resources • AVOID AUTOMATIC LEVELLING

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Manual Resource Levelling

• Create Delays

• Remove or Replace resources

• Reduce Units

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Assign Costs to resources

• Default rates for all resources can be assigned (Tools / Options / General)

• If costs change use the Resource Information / Costs Tab and specify the costs with effective dates (useful if a

resource gets a salary revision during the course of the project)

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Set Fixed Costs

• Useful when the exact cost associated with a cost is known

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Define When Costs Accrue

• Accrual can be prorated, at the start or at the end of a project

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Review the cost of tasks and

resources

• From the Resource sheet click View / Table / Cost

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Cost distribution over a task

• Choose View / Task Usage

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Resource Costs (Detail)

• Choose view / resource usage • Choose format / details / cost

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Resource Costs (Graphical)

• Choose view / resource graph

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Cost of Entire Project

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View the entire project

• From the GANT Chart • Choose View /

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Check the Project dates

• Check the project’s START and FINISH dates

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Identify Critical Path

• Critical Path

– Has Zero Slack – Tasks can’t be

delayed without affecting overall schedule

• Use the GANTT chart wizard to identify the critical path

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Viewing Critical Tasks

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Switching Views

• Choose View / More Views

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Different Fields in a View

• View / More Views

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Using Filters

• Interactive Filters can be applied • Resource filters cannot be applied to tasks and vice versa

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Sorting Tasks

• Variety of sorts are possible • Renumbering tasks permanently • Its possible to maintain the hierarchy of the subtasks to its parent task

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Grouping Information

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Save the Plan

• Save the plan with a baseline it helps in tracking your project • To save the budget,

Planning and Scheduling Your Project Using Microsoft Project 2003