Tutorial

Microsoft Project: The Basics

If you're new to project management or Microsoft Project, you may have questions about creating and managing a project. This tutorial provides information about basic project management and Microsoft Project concepts, and then leads you through lessons where you'll learn how to create a plan, track its progress, and communicate the results.

Each lesson for creating your plan, tracking progress, and communicating results contains a set of step-by-step directions with simple navigation to lead you through the process. Click a lesson under The Basics or follow the link below to get acquainted with project management and Microsoft Project. To start building your project right away, click Create a plan on the menu at the left.

What is project management?

Project management is the process of planning, organizing, and managing tasks and resources to accomplish a defined objective, usually within constraints on time, resources, or cost. A project plan can be simple, for example, a list of tasks and their start and finish dates written on a notepad. Or it can be complex, for example, thousands of tasks and resources and a project budget of millions of dollars.

Most projects share common activities, including breaking the project into easily manageable tasks, scheduling the tasks, communicating with the team, and tracking the tasks as work progresses. And all projects consist of three major phases:

1	Build the plan
2	Track and manage the project
3	Close the project

The more successful these phases are, the greater your chance of a successful project.

The project triangle

If only you could foresee your project's future....
In a way you can, if you understand three factors that shape every project:

Time: The time to complete the project reflected in your project schedule.
Money: The project budget, based on the cost of the resources: the people, equipment, and materials required to do the tasks.

Scope: The goals and tasks of the project and the work required to complete them.

This trio of time, money, and scope is the project triangle. Adjusting one of these elements affects the other two. While all three elements are important, typically one will have the most influence on your project.

The relationship between these elements differs in every project and determines the kinds of problems you'll encounter and the solutions you can implement. Knowing where you're constrained or flexible makes it easier to plan and manage your project

The Microsoft Project database

As project manager, you have a lot to do. How does Microsoft Project help? First, it stores the details about your project in its database. And it uses that information to calculate and maintain the project's schedule, costs, and other elements, creating a project plan. The more information you provide, the more accurate the plan.

Like a spreadsheet, Microsoft Project displays results of its calculations immediately. But the project plan isn't done until you enter critical information about all tasks. Only then do you see when your project will end or the dates when tasks are scheduled.

Microsoft Project keeps the information you enter and the information it calculates in fields, which contain specific types of information, such as task names or durations. In Microsoft Project, each field usually appears in a column

Seeing the data you need

Today, you're focused on deadlines. Tomorrow, costs. The project database contains a lot of information, but at any given time, you only need a portion of it. To get to information, use these tools:

Views present a subset of project information in a format that's easy to interpret. For example, the Gantt Chart displays basic task information in columns and a bar graph.

Tables define the columns displayed.
Filters focus on specific tasks or resources.

Like TV channels, each view presents a different kind of information. Tables and filters fine-tune the information. Just as switching channels doesn't delete them, changing views, tables, or filters may hide information, but it doesn't delete it. It's still in the database and is still updated.

How Microsoft Project schedules

How does Microsoft Project schedule a task's start and finish? It takes into account many factors, including task dependencies, constraints, and interruptions, such as holidays or vacation days. Most importantly, Microsoft Project schedules each task using the formula duration=work/resource effort, where:

Duration is the actual amount of time that passes before the task is done.
Work is the effort required over a period of time to do the task.
Resource effort is the amount of effort resources are assigned to the task and their allocation.

For example, if:

Three painters work two days on a task, with an effort of 8 hours per day, the work for each resource is 16 hours: (2 days * 8 hours).
The total effort of the resources is 24 hours per day: (3 painters * 8 hours).
The total work for the task is 48 hours: (2 days * 8 hours * 3 painters).
The duration is 2 days: 48 hours / (3 painters * 8 hours).

Understanding this formula is important to understanding how changes you make to tasks affect the project schedule.

Putting it together

After you've created the task list and provided schedule information, your plan is built. You can see a full model of your project, including its finish date and the start and finish dates for every task. What's next?

Review critical paths for potential problems. A critical path is a series of linked tasks that must be done on time for the project to finish on time. If any task on a critical path is delayed, it can end up delaying the project's finish date.

Evaluate and optimize the plan until you're satisfied. Before you start your project and periodically during the project, you'll need to evaluate and adjust the project plan. Consider scope, resources, and schedule.
Update Microsoft Project about the progress of tasks. In return, it'll show you an updated project plan. You can update the plan yourself, or your team can, with Microsoft Project Central or electronic mail. After the plan is updated, review it to see the effect of changes. Is the project over budget? Is a team member now scheduled to work overtime? Is your project going to end late?
Close the project. Evaluate the lessons learned and best practices.