Course Description

Students will learn the fundamentals of Project Management along with integrating Microsoft Project in this course. Learn the Staged Approach of the Project and the basics of designing a Project Plan, assigning resources their tasks, changing and implementing calendars, using views and filters to assemble information, and print out your Project Plan. Looking at the cost implications of the project and tracking the project to its completion.

Pre-requisites

Delegates should have experience of the windows environment. Knowledge of Project Management is useful but not essential as some of these principles are discussed on the course.

Course Content

Project Management and the Project Life Cycle

• What do we expect from this Course?
• 7 Principals of Project Management
• What is a Project?
• Projects Within a Programme
• What is Project Management?
• Who is the Project Manager?
• Project Organisation Structure
• The Project Life Cycle – 4 Stage Approach

Stage 1 – Initiation

• Identify need for project
• Analyse Business Options
• Review Previous Lessons Learned
• Measure Benefits against Dis-benefits
• Identify Major Risks
• Define and Document Roles and Responsibilities
• Complete Business Case
• Business Case Sign off

Stage 2 – Planning

• Projects agreed and prioritised
• Appoint Project Manager
• PID creation commence
• Create Work Breakdown Structure

Getting Started with Project

• Overview of Screen, Views and Tables used in Project
• System Options
• Base Calendars
• Outlining the Plan
• Inserting and Editing Tasks
• Inserting Task Notes
• Manual Schedule Vs Auto Schedule
• Entering Task Durations
• Entering Milestones
• Entering Recurring Tasks
• Changing Task Information
• Saving the Project

Completing PID Documentation

• Create Quality Management Strategy
• Create Risk Register
• Create Communication Management Strategy
• Update Lessons Learned
• Create Configuration Management Strategy
• Define Project Controls

Printing your Project

• Preparing your Project for Print (WYSIWYG)
• Printing Gantt Charts
• Controlling multiple pages
• Page Height and Width
• Formatting Headers, Footers and Legends
• Manipulating the print with the View Tab
• The Print Dialog Box

Stage 3 – Execution/Control

• Assess and Analyse Risks
• Changes controlled and documented
• Issues documented and escalated
• Actuals against Planned Documented
• Business Case & PID Updated
• End Stage Plans completed and Signed off

Tracking Progress in MS Project

• Recording Progress
• Saving a Baseline
• Update scheduled tasks
• Update Actual Start and Actual Finish
• Reschedule tasks not yet started
• Tracking Actual Tasks against Actual Work
• Viewing Costs over Budget
• Updating when timesheets received
• Viewing Actual and Baseline Data
• Final assessment of the Plan

Reporting in Project

• Overview of list of reports
• Visual Reports
• Cost Reports
• Comparison Reports
• Assignment Reports
• Workload Reports
• Building a Custom Report

Stage 4

• Closing the Project
• Complete Lessons Learned Log and Report
• Complete End Project Report
• Determining Success/Failure of Project
• End Project Meeting
• Free up Resources

Task Dependencies

• Task Relationships
• Lag and Lead time
• Splitting Tasks
• Understanding Critical Tasks and the Critical Path
• Slack Time
• Entering Task Constraints

Defining Resources

• Adding Resources to the Plan
• Assigning Resources their tasks
• Effort Driven Scheduling
• Resource Scheduling
• Fixed Duration
• Fixed Work
• Fixed Units

Using Calendars

• The type of Calendars used in Project
• Making changes to the Project Calendar
• Making changes to the Resources Calendar
• Creating and assigning a new Calendar

Resolving Resource Conflicts

• Resource Management Toolbar
• Find Overallocations
• What do you do about it?
• Resolving Resource Conflicts Automatically
• Levelling the Project
• Viewing effects of levelling

Overview of Project Views

• Timeline View
• Team Planner View
• Other Views within Project
• Filtering data using the Filter
• Filtering data using the AutoFilter
• Grouping data using the Group feature

Working with Costs

• Displaying Cost information
• Entering fixed costs
• Controlling costs
• Reducing Costs