Chapter 1 RI AL Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care TE In This Chapter ▶ Discovering how traditional project management makes the move to software ▶ Understanding the project manager’s role MA ▶ Understanding what elements of a project are managed in Project ▶ Exploring the role of the Internet in project management D ▶ Using a template to start a new project ▶ Saving a project file GH W TE ▶ Finding help in Project PY RI elcome to the world of computerized project manage
10 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project The ABCs of Project Management You probably handle projects day in and day out. Some are obvious, because your boss named them so that any fool would know that they’re projects: the Acme Drilling Project or the Network Expansion IT Project, for example. Others are less obvious, such as that speech thing you have to do on Saturday for your professional association or washing the dog. If you need to organize a company holiday party, it’s a project.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care A task is simply one of those items you used to scribble on your handwritten to-do lists, such as Write final report or Apply for permits. Tasks are typically organized into phases (appropriate stages) in Project, arranged in an outlinelike structure, as you can see in the project shown in Figure 1-1. Because timing is essential in any project, Project helps you set up and view the timing relationships among tasks.
12 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project One handy thing about this outlining structure is that you can roll up all the timing and cost data from the subtasks within your phases into summarylevel tasks. Three sequential subtasks that take a day each to complete and cost you $200 apiece result in a summary task that spans three days and costs $600. You can view your project at various levels of detail or get automatic tallies of timing and costs if you prefer to simply view the summary level of tasks.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Figure 1-2: This schedule includes tasks with timing but no dependencies. Here are some examples of dependencies: ✓ You can’t begin to use a new piece of equipment until you install it. ✓ You must wait for a freshly poured concrete foundation to dry before you can begin to build on it. ✓ You can’t start to ship a new drug product until the FDA approves it.
14 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Figure 1-3: This schedule includes tasks with both timing and dependencies. You can find out more about constraints in Chapter 4 and about the fine art of managing dependencies in Chapter 6. Lining up your resources When people first use Project, some get a bit confused about resources.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Some resources, such as people, perform their work according to a working calendar. If a person works an 8-hour day and you assign him to a task that takes 24 hours to complete, that person has to put in three workdays to complete the task. In comparison, someone with a 12-hour workday takes only two days to complete the same task.
16 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project day — and in the same eight hours — Project has features that do everything but jump up on your desk and set off an alarm to warn you of the conflict. (Luckily, Project also provides tools that help you resolve those conflicts.) Spreading the news I’m one of those people who need instant gratification.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Figure 1-6: An Unstarted Tasks report. Planning to keep things on track Projects aren’t frozen in amber like some organizational mosquito: They go through more changes than a politician’s platform in a campaign year. That’s where Project’s capability to make changes to your project data comes in handy. After you build all your tasks, give them durations and dependencies, and assign all your resources and costs, you set a baseline.
18 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Whether you have good news or bad, you can use reports to show your boss how things are going compared with how you thought they would go. Then, after you peel your boss off the ceiling, you can use many more Project tools to make adjustments to get everything back on track. The Role of the Project Manager Although understanding the role (let alone the usefulness) of some managers isn’t always easy, it’s always easy to spot the value of a project manager.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Although a project manager may work for a project sponsor, the project often also has a customer for whom the end product is produced. That customer can be outside the project manager’s own company, or within. Understanding the dreaded triple constraint You’ve seen the signs at the copy store or the auto repair place: You can have it fast, cheap, or done well; pick two.
20 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Figure 1-7: The Gantt chart method of project scheduling as it appears in Microsoft Project. Figure 1-8: A kissin’ cousin to the original PERT chart, the Network Diagram focuses on work, not on time.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care ✓ Risk management is a central part of project management because, frankly, projects are chock-full of risk. You run the risk that your resources won’t perform, that materials will arrive late, that your customer will change all the parameters of the project halfway through — well, you get the picture.
22 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Figure 1-9 also shows an exclamation point icon (indicator) that tells you that one resource needs help, which might involve using resource leveling, a calculation that automatically reschedules resources to resolve overbooking. Resource leveling can enable you to manage resources much more effectively. You can see how overbooked the PR Manager is on two dates.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care ✓ You can use built-in templates to get a head start on your project. Project templates are prebuilt plans for a typical business project, such as commercial construction, an engineering project, a new product rollout, software development, or an office move. See the section “Starting with templates,” later in this chapter, for more about this time-saving feature. You likely do similar types of projects all the time.
24 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Getting Started As Shakespeare said, “In delay there lies no plenty.” I don’t know about you, but I need all the plenty I can get, so it’s time to jump in and start using Project. You have two choices when starting a new project. You can build a project from scratch by entering individual task and resource details, or you can use a project template that already contains data related to your industry or the type of project you’re doing.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Figure 1-10: Use the Project Information dialog box for some basic project settings. ✓ Set the finish date for the project. Especially if you have a drop-dead date (an attention-getting term!) beyond which the project cannot wander and still reach on-time completion, you can set the finish date. In such a case, be sure to look at the next setting in this list — and change it accordingly. ✓ Schedule from the start or finish of the project.
26 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project ✓ Set the working calendar for your project. You have three default choices: Standard, Night Shift, and 24 Hours. Base your choice on the working habits of your organization. For example, if your company uses resources in three shifts per day — a total of 24 hours of straight working time — and all those shifts would contribute work to your project, choose 24 Hours. If you use a day shift and a night shift, choose Night Shift.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care File tab, Ribbon, and Timeline Figure 1-12: Begin with a new Project schedule. Sheet Chart area In Figure 1-12, you see Gantt Chart view. You discover more about various views in Chapter 2. For now, note the following: ✓ File tab, Ribbon, and Timeline: These tools are part of the new interface for Project 2010. You find out more about using them in Chapter 2. ✓ Sheet: The left side of the view is the sheet or sheet pane.
28 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project You start building a project by entering tasks. Simply click a cell in the Task Name column of the sheet section and then type the name. You can enter and edit details of a task by entering information directly into various columns (which you can display in many views) or by double-clicking the task name in the sheet to access the Task Information dialog box (see Figure 1-13). I get into more detail about entering task information in Chapter 2.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Figure 1-14: Open a template from the Available Templates screen in the Backstage. 3. Click a template to display a preview. As shown in Figure 1-15, a preview of the selected template appears at the far right. 4. When you find the template you want to use, click Download. The template opens in Project template format (MPT).
30 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Figure 1-15: The Backstage view previews the selected template. Saving a Project for Posterity Saving Project files works just as saving does in most other software you’ve used. Here’s a reminder. To save a Project file that you haven’t saved before, follow these steps: 1. Choose File➪Save As. You can choose Save instead if you created the project from scratch rather than from a template. 2.
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care Getting Help from Project If you can get to work without mishap and turn on your computer, you probably know how to use a help system in software, too. Table 1-1 offers a rundown of the types of help you can find in Project 2010 when you click the Help button just above the right end of the Ribbon or when you press F1.
32 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project
