Datasheet

There’s truth to the old joke: Time, budget, or quality — pick two. Devoting resources
(which usually become costs) to a project schedule can decrease the time but can also
cause loss of quality control. Extending the time can improve quality but usually causes resource con-
flicts and added costs. Microsoft Project helps you see the trade-offs among these three important cri-
teria throughout the life of your project.
Planning is the point at which you begin to enter data in Microsoft Project and see your project
take shape. Figure 1.6 shows an initial Microsoft Project schedule.
Revising
Most of the time, you send an initial project schedule to various managers or coworkers for
approval or input so that you can refine the schedule based on different factors. You can use the
reporting features of Microsoft Project to generate several drafts of your plan.
Chapter 13 explains more about the reports that are available in Project.
FIGURE 1.6
The outline format of a Project schedule clearly shows the various phases of your project. Dependencies
among tasks have not yet been established; every task starts at the same time, which isn’t always possible.
CROSS-REF
CROSS-REF
NOTE
NOTE
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Project Management Basics
Part I
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