Project Knowledge

Microsoft Project Tips and Tricks #2

Back in April, we published the first installment in a series of high-impact Microsoft Project tips and tricks that we delivered in conjunction with Microsoft NZ.  Since then, we've delivered these tips in other Microsoft venues in NZ.  We've received really positive feedback as it appears that we cover many pain points that users experience in their day-to-day use of the tool.

As promised, we're now posting the second installment.  Whereas the first set of tips focused on getting started with planning, these tips focus on making the project map to the real world by adding resources, constraints and reporting the project to its various stakeholders. 

In these tips and tricks, we'll cover the following topics:

• Reviewing the schedule (continued from part 1)

• Don’t just rely on the default Gantt chart view

• Assigning people and costs

• Get to grips with Effort-Driven tasks

• Use Task Types to accurately schedule work

• Managing external influences

• Choosing and using constraints

• Constraining resource supply

• Viewing, analysing and reporting

• Creating lookup tables for data analysis

• Creatively using filters and groups

Part 3 will be published in the next blog post.  Just click on this link to download the part 2 handout in PDF format.

Notes for Project Mentor users

Within the handout, you'll see links to various Lessons and References.  Just lookup a lesson or reference for step-by-step instructions or detailed explanations about each of the tips and tricks listed.

Posted by: Andy Jessop

Microsoft Project Tips and Tricks #1

In conjunction with Microsoft, we recently delivered a collection of high-impact tips and tricks to a wide and varied audience of Microsoft Project users in Wellington, NZ. 

We received some excellent feedback from the attendees, so we'd like to share these tips and tricks with you.  We've broken down the delegate handouts into three parts; following a typical project's lifecycle.

• Project preliminaries
  • Harmonise your times and dates
  • Categorise your costs
• Planning the work
  • Manage the project’s structure
  • Understand task durations
  • Link it all together
• Reviewing the schedule
  •  Use more than one table
  • Let Microsoft Project highlight schedule changes

Parts 2 and 3 will be published in successive blog posts.  Just click on this link to download the part 1 handout in PDF format.

Notes for Project Mentor users

Within the handout, you'll see links to various Lessons and References.  Just lookup a lesson or reference for step-by-step instructions or detailed explanations about each of the tips and tricks listed.

Posted by: Andy Jessop

Creating custom Groups in Microsoft Project

This quick question comes from Maurice Iyalla of Intelliglobal Resources based in Houston, TX, USA:

How do you "custom group" on Ms Project?

As Maurice will have probably noticed, the number of pre-defined Groups available within Microsoft Project is pretty limited. Grouping on Critical Tasks, Task Durations or Milestone Y/N is not that exciting. Creating your own Custom Group is a straightforward process, especially as Custom Groups can be saved and reused. If you are using custom fields that contain Lookup Tables, then grouping becomes even more powerful.

This is all you need to do to create a custom group and save it for reuse:

Preparation:

1. First and foremost, know the Field (Task or Resource) that you wish to group upon.

2. Ensure that you are in a Task-based view to group by task field, or a Resource-based view to group by resource field. Note that if you don’t want to see Gantt bars, the Task Sheet is an ideal view to use.

3. If you are looking to subtotal work or cost values by Group, apply the Work or Cost table (customized as appropriate).

To apply the grouping:

1. From the Project menu, select Group, and then select Customize Group By.

2. Within the Customize Group By dialog, select the field you wish to group against, together with an ascending or descending order. Optionally, you can select additional sub-groupings and format the font and cell appearance for each group.

3. Next, click on the SAVE button, giving your new group an appropriate name.

4. Click OK to then group your information.

To revert back to no grouping, just select No Group from the Group By drop down. To re-group, just choose your new group from the list.

Project Plan notes

Download Using_Groups

The attached Microsoft Project data file displays the Task Sheet view. The Work table has been added to this view, with a custom field "Responsibility" added. This field is a simple Lookup Table containing two values "Scott" and "Sue". It could of course contain many values or it could be an Outline Code containing hierarchical values.

As one of the key purposes of grouping is to subtotal work and cost values, or rollup custom field values, Gantt bars can detract from the message. That is why a Task Sheet has been chosen as it just contains words and numbers. If you wanted to group against resource attributes, just use the Resource Sheet view.

Notes for Project Mentor users

See "Reference F1.4 Intelligently using sort criteria" for a comprehensive explanation about this topic.

Posted by: Andy Jessop

Using Filters to select key data

This quick question comes from Guy Rouleau of Canada:

How can I create a report for summary tasks only?

This question has a quick and simple answer.  Within the Formatting Toolbar of Microsoft Project, there is a drop down list of Filters that can be used to select key data.  One of these Filters is entitled “Summary Tasks”.

Guy’s question echoes many we receive in training courses in that Filters within Microsoft Project are not fully used or understood.  When we take time to explain how filters work, together with their benefits, people wonder how they’ve managed without them before.  Some useful default filters to consider are:

• When planning a project: Critical (just selects tasks on the project’s critical path); Milestones (just Milestone tasks); Tasks with Deadlines (only tasks that have deadline dates); Tasks With Fixed Dates (tasks that have constrained dates applied e.g. ‘Start No Earlier Than’).

• When a project is underway: Completed Tasks (equals 100% complete); Cost Overbudget (Cost > Baseline Cost); In Progress Tasks (tasks that have an Actual Start date but no Actual Finish date); Slipping Tasks (Finish > Baseline Finish).
  
  There are many more filters available for both tasks and resources.  Don’t forget that you can also create your own custom filters (for example against custom fields) using AutoFilter.

Notes for Project Mentor users

See "Reference F1.1 Using global filters" and "Reference F1.2 Creative use of AutoFilter" for a comprehensive explanation about this topic.

Posted by: Andy Jessop

A Million Reasons to Have Water

Imagine having to leave home at 4:30 in the morning, walk for up to 3 hours and then return in 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) heat under an intense sun carrying water that weighs as much as a small refrigerator?  Now, imagine having to do that day-after-day?  What’s more, once the water is home, you’d hope that it would be clean and disease-free – but that can’t be guaranteed either.

Water, our most basic necessity, is taken for granted by so many of us; yet for some just getting access to water can be a back-breaking and often dangerous task. 

In the southern-African country of Tanzania, a project by UNICEF aims to change the lives of villagers by providing ready access to clean and healthy water.  We’ve decided to help this project by becoming a “Global Parent”, with a monthly ongoing donation to help this (and future) projects meet their goals.
  

To find out more about this initiative, together with the numerous other UNICEF projects around the world, just follow this link.

Posted by: Andy Jessop

How to reschedule tasks with constraints applied to them

This question, together with an associated data file comes from Bruce Tiven of Westerly, Rhode Island, USA:

I have a project scheduled out between mid-September and early April.

The project actually got under way a little more than three weeks late and now I would like to change the dates at the top of the chart without having to completely re-do the entire schedule. I tried changing the "Start Date" in the project information box, but it doesn't change anything.
Is there a way to simply shift the dates at the top of the chart to reflect more accurately the start and the progress of this project?

As Bruce’s sample data file contains tasks that do not possess any dependency links and merely have start constraints associated with them, his problem can be addressed in two different ways:

• As all the tasks have Start No Earlier Than (SNET) constraints applied to them, changing the project’s start date will have no effect because the tasks are individually constrained. The quick fix to this problem is to use the ‘Adjust Dates’wizard. This can be found on the ‘Analysis’ toolbar (View..Toolbars..Analysis). All Bruce has to do is enter in the revised project start date within this dialog box, and all tasks will be offset by the difference between the original start date and the revised start date.
• A more considered approach to Bruce’s problem is to question the need for SNET dates against all the project’s tasks. From my experience, constraints should be used sparingly. A simple rule to apply is to ask why a task should occur when it does. If it has to start or end due to external factors (a client signoff, access restrictions etc.), then these factors are ideal uses for constraints. If the reason is because a preceding task must be finished first (e.g. you can’t proof read a document until it has been written), a constraint alone is not applicable. A much more dynamic way to schedule (and to let Microsoft Project’s calculation engine do its job) is to create dependency links between tasks. By having these precedence links in place, any delay to a predecessor (or the project start date for that matter) will have a direct effect on all successor tasks. What’s more, a project’s Critical Path and any Total Slack or Free Slack against specific tasks is much more visible, and as such a project is much easier to manage.

When applying a constraint, choose which constraint type is most appropriate before applying the constraint. Avoid the temptation to simply enter in dates within the ‘Start’ cell for each task or to drag task bars around the Gantt chart. Either of these actions will create a SNET constraint. The Advanced Tab of the Task Information dialog or the Constraint Dates table are ideal places to add and edit constraints. Remember, if you have constraints against tasks, check their validity on a regular basis and edit constrained dates as necessary.

In conclusion, use links wherever possible and only apply constraints to tasks when there is a valid reason to do so.

Notes for Project Mentor users

See "Reference E2.2 applying task constraints" for a comprehensive explanation about this topic.

Posted by Andy Jessop

Find out who are the IT Project & Portfolio Management movers and shakers in the latest "Magic Quadrant" from Gartner

Is Microsoft Project a leader, challenger, visionary or a niche player?  Find out how Gartner has evaluated the state of play within the project and portfolio marketplace and ranked major software vendors including Microsoft and Primavera (now owned by Oracle) against their 'ability to execute' and their 'completeness of vision'.  Click below to view the document reprint:

http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/primavera/157924.html

Posted by: Andy Jessop

Can Microsoft Project Handle a Big Construction Project?

Ever wondered how good Microsoft Project is at handling big construction projects? Tucked away in the third from last paragraph of this case study is the mention that the 660,000 square feet new distribution centre for Newell Rubbermaid was managed via Microsoft Project.

What we really liked about example was that prograss against a complex and time-critical project was tracked on a regular basis and the key stakeholder (the building owner) was provided with information that was both accurate and timely.  All too often we hear of projects that are planned in great detail and are then inadequately managed.  Plus, we liked the idea of having the two live video cameras on site for remove viewing of actual physical progress.  To read the article, just click on this link:

http://www.acppubs.com/article/CA6594685.html?industryid=48591

Posted by: Andy Jessop

Scheduling project-wide resource overheads with Microsoft Project

This 2-part question is from Mark Moeller of Woodinville, WA, USA:

I have two different resource assignment issues to solve:

1) I have a resource who needs to be on a project 25% of their time for the entire project, regardless of when it starts or ends. How do I set that up?

2) I have a fixed pool of days of work that needs to be spread evenly across 'n' resources for the duration of the project. This should then take away some small fraction of availability of those same resources for other tasks (basically allocating specific overhead tasks). How do I do this?

As Mark is looking to schedule resource work over the entire project’s duration, the temptation would be to simply use a project summary task. Unfortunately, a project summary task isn’t really a task at all. It is merely a mechanism that rolls up duration, work and cost from the “real” tasks within the project.

What Mark therefore needs to help him is a “Hammock” task. Hammock tasks (as they are commonly known) span between two parts of a project. In Mark’s case this is between the project’s start and end dates; but hammocks can be used to span between any two points within a project’s schedule. Once created, resources can be assigned to hammocks to represent project overheads. Creating a hammock task is a fairly straightforward thing to do:

1. Create a summary task at level 1 of the project’s outline. If you create this task at the top of the list of tasks or at its base, this will make the summary task easier to identify.

2. Hierarchically beneath this summary task, add two Milestones with no fixed dates against them; i.e. their Constraint Type is ‘ASAP’. Give these milestones recognizable names; such as. “Hammock start” and “Hammock end”.

3. Within the main body of the task list create two milestones entitled “Project start” and “Project end”. Ensure these milestones are linked to the first and last tasks (or summary tasks) within the project respectively. Ideally, these milestones should not be embedded within a summary task.

4. Create an F-S link from your “Project start” milestone to your “Hammock start” milestone. Repeat the process for the “Project start” and “Hammock end” milestones.

You will now have created a hammock task. It will start when the project starts and it will finish when the project finishes. Any change to the start and finish of the project will automatically be reflected in the hammock’s duration and its dates. The next step is to assign some resources:

• To reflect assigning 25% of a person’s time over the project duration, simply assign that person to the hammock task, choosing 25% as the Assigned Units value. You can use the Assign Resources dialog or a Task Form to do this. As the hammock is a summary task, it is Fixed Duration in type. As such, the work for the resource will be calculated as Task Duration x Assigned Units. All this useful information is displayed within the Task Form view

• To assign work for several resources out of the pool, these resources can also be assigned to the hammock. Due to the scheduling rules regarding summary tasks, their non effort-driven status means that all assignments against summary tasks are independent of one another. Thus, Mark will have to apportion the total work for the pool between each pool member. This in turn will calculate the assigned units by the formula: Assigned Work / Task Duration = Assigned work. The remaining availability for each resource can then be seen within the Resource Usage view.

Download scheduling_projectwide_resource_overheads.mpp

Project Plan notes:

1. The start of the hammock task is controlled by the “Project start” milestone as this is the earliest task in the project’s schedule. The end of the hammock could be controlled by either the “Project end” milestone, or the end of “Summary B” (chosen in this case for illustration purposes), as either of these are scheduled at the end of the project.

2. All resources within the resource pool have max units (availability of 100%). The resource Usage view illustrates:

• The resource “Management resource” is assigned to the hammock task at 25% units to represent an overhead against the project. The assignments at 75% for this resource against “Task A1” and “Task B2” show work against real tasks and illustrate how remaining availability can be consumed.

• The resource “Pool Member 1” does not exceed their max units. This is because the sum of the assignments for this resource against parallel tasks “Task A2”, “Task B1” and “Hammock” is less than 100%.

• The resource “Pool member 2” is overallocated. This is due to an assignment at 100% units (the default) against “Task B1” and an 8% unit assignment against “Hammock”. You should therefore be careful not to allocate any resource greater than their remaining availability when resource overheads are being scheduled.

• To display Remaining Availability within the Resource Usage veiw, simply select this option by choosing Details from the Format menu.

• The Gantt Chart view has been customized to highlight the hammock task to differentiate it from normal summary tasks. In this instance, the Bar for “Hammock” has been formatted to a different bar shape and Resource Names have been appended as bar text.

This useful hint and tip came from Project Mentor, our computer based training package for Microsoft Project.

Posted by Andy Jessop