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Do you know the accepted way of defining the scope of a project? How about the industry standard approach for developing a schedule? (Hint: It’s not specifying the dates on which tasks are to occur!) Do you understand what project managers are referring to when they discuss a task’s duration rather than the work associated with the task? These are some of the project management practices and concepts that should be well understood if you’re going to be able to effectively use Microsoft Project to manage project schedules, spending plans and project staffing. Using Microsoft Project without an understanding of these fundamental project management concepts is like using a word processing program without understanding what a sentence or paragraph is. It’s difficult to be effective in that situation!
Before a project schedule can be obtained from Microsoft Project the user must provide four inputs. First, the scope of the project must be defined. Scope definition is done in a specific way in accordance with established guidelines. Scope definition answers the question, “What exactly is the project?” Until the project’s scope is understood we can’t develop a schedule or spending and staffing plan for the project.
Secondly, the order in which the project tasks need to be done should be specified. For example, materials have to be delivered to the job site before we can start construction with them. There are many considerations when sequencing the tasks and this is one of the more difficult and often misunderstood aspects of developing project schedules in planning tools like Microsoft Project.
Another key input necessary for developing the project plan is the identification of resources. Who will be needed to do the work of the project? What facilities or equipment will be required in order to complete the project? Without resources we have no way of accomplishing the project’s work. However, resources have different levels of productivity and this impacts the project schedule and, perhaps, budget.
Finally, the amount of effort required to complete each task in the plan, and ultimately, how long each task is going to take, need to be estimated. This is in part a function of the third input, the resources that are to be assigned to the tasks.
Without these four inputs Microsoft Project cannot develop a schedule for the project so you can see how important it is to be able to provide these inputs according to best practices. The methods for defining scope, sequencing tasks, identifying resources and estimating task size are among the topics covered in Project Management Principles & Practices. This course provides a thorough overview of the wide variety of knowledge and skills that project managers are expected to have, many of which are necessary for the effective use of Microsoft Office Project.
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