Duration

3 day(s)

Audience

This course is intended for everybody who wants to manage, to follow-up and to optimize projects in a structured way on the PC.

Prerequisites

A general knowledge of the basic principles and manipulations in Windows is needed. A general and/or practical knowlegde of project management principles is an advantage when following this training.

Objectives

To obtain a clear view of the components, possibilities and principles of MS Project. After this training the course participants are able to manage independently their projects in MS Project.

Methods

Classical training with individual support. Practical exercises make it possible for the course participants to familiarize with the possibilities of the product. Each participant will execute the exercices on his own workstation.

Description

Microsoft Project is a software program for Project Management. This software will assist the Project Manager when he is creating, tracking and reporting about his projects. Via the graphical(MS Windows) user-interface it offers lots of presentation possibilities for the different project data and it is easy to learn and to use.

3 main tasks can be distinguished within the usage of Microsoft Project :

·Project creation : definition of tasks and subtasks of the project, specification of resources that will be used for each of the tasks, identification of relations between the tasks and registration of date/time information. Using these data Microsoft Project will calculate a schedule for the project. In this way the Project Manager knows when each task will be finisched, how tasks will be executed by the different resourcesand what is the cost of each task.Then the Project Manager can modify all data elements in order to reduce the time needed to perform the project or to reduce the cos

·Tracking of the project: by registering real data about start-date andend-date, costs, resource usage,... Microsoft Project will inform you about the differences between your original plan and reality.This information will be used by the Project Manager to update the project by assigning more or other resources, changing date constraints,... .

·Reporting about the project : different customizable standard reports and self-made reports will help the Project Manager in each phase of the project to pass clear project information to different persons.

Contents

• Overview of the possibilities of MS Project
• Introduction of the general project information
  • Scheduling from the project start date or from the end date
  • Usage of the project calendar
  • Introduction of the project name, project manager, company or department
  • Changing the default settings for currency, date-format, project-summary-task,...
• Specification of the project tasks
  • Working on the Gannt-chart view
    • Introduction of tasks : name and duration
    • Working with summary and subtasks
    • Specify the project milestones
    • Linking tasks (FS, SS, FF, SF)
    • Use of Lag end Lead
    • Using Date constraints
    • Specify a deadline for tasks
    • WBS-code and outlining of tasks
    • Documentation of tasks
    • Defining recurring tasks
    • Display and interpretation of the Critical Path - definition and importance of Slack
• Introduction of resources
  • Working on the resource sheet view
    • Introduction of the resource data : name, material label, max units
    • Resource types : work, material and cost
    • Standard cost, overtime and fixed costs
    • Resource calendar vs. availability
    • Documentation about resources
    • Changing costs in time
    • Using cost rate tables
• Assigning resources to tasks
  • Methods to assign resources to tasks
    • Using the "Split Screen" method
    • Using the "Assign Resources" icon
    • Using the "Resource Name" column
    • Using the "Task Information" window
    • Importance of the Task Type
    • Effort Driven scheduling
• Finding over- and underallocations of resources
  • Using the Resource Sheet view
  • Using the Resource graph
  • Using the Resource Usage view
  • Resolving overallocations
    • Manual
    • Automatic
• Calculation of the project costs
  • Total project cost
  • Costs per task on the Task Usage view
  • Costs per resource on the Resource Usage view
• Usage of calendars
  • Types of calendars : project - task - resource
  • Changing an existing calendar
  • Creation of a new calendar
  • Assigning a calendar
• Project Tracking
  • Saving a baseline
  • Entering actual data
  • Comparing actuals with planned data
  • Working with interim plans
  • Updating a project with actuals
  • Replanning the project
• Customizing the project views
  • Gannt chart customisation
  • Working with fields : using tables
  • Using customized fields
  • Working with groups, sorts and filters
  • Creation of personalized views
  • Working with the organizer to maintain tables, views, filters, calendars,...
• Exporting project data
  • Office printing
  • Displaying, customizing and printing of predefined reports
  • Comparing actual information with the baseline
  • Export to image format
  • Export to Excel format
  • Reschedule the project
• Working with multiple projects
  • Using project templates
  • Using subprojects in a consolidated project
  • Links between projects
• Introduction to "Enterprise Project Management"
  • Microsoft Project Server
    • Activities of the project manager in a Project Server environment
    • Activities of the administrator in a Project Server environment
    • Activities of the resources in a Project Server environment
    • Activities of the company stakeholders in a Project Server environment