Planning and Scheduling Your Project Using Microsoft Project 2003 Sridhar Pandurangiah Director - Engineering

Meeting Protocol

Agenda Project File Project Calendar Creating Tasks and WBS Milestones Recurring Tasks Dependencies Lead and Lag times Constraints Deadlines Split Tasks Resources Contouring Over allocations Cost Optimise Plan Earned Value Management

Create a Project File Create a new file Choose one of the templates Complete the summary tab Complete Project Information

Change Project Calendar Working time Week starting (middle east projects will have their weekends on Thursday and Friday) Holidays Staff leave

View Options Change the date format to that used by the client Change the currency symbol, decimal digits to the currency you would use to track the project cost.

General Options Specify the user name, standard and overtime billing rates For Whizible users –Uncheck “Advice From Planning Wizard”

Schedule Options Change the duration from days to hours For Whizible users –Uncheck “Show Scheduling messages” –Uncheck “Tasks will always honour their constraint dates” Click “Set as Default”

Enter tasks and Duration % Complete, WBS, Task name, work, duration, start, finish, predecessors, resource names Enter tasks and duration – Don’t enter the start and finish dates. Also enter the notes. –Elapsed Duration (ed) is calendar duration Indent tasks to create a logical outline Break large tasks to smaller tasks

Enter tasks and Duration For Whizible users –Use the “Text 30” field to define Task Type –Use the following priority Low (0 to 400) Medium (401 to 600) High (601 to 900) NULL (901 – 1000) – Ignored by Whizible You can assign a “Task Calendar” to a task. Then the option “Scheduling ignores resource calendar”

Identify Milestones Identify significant events as milestones [Creating a task of 0 days marks it as a milestone] Indicated by  Change Icon

Create Recurring Tasks Weekly team meetings, SQA reviews, Weekly Progress Reporting all recur at predetermined intervals Roll Gantt Bar to Summary – Specific task information defined in the Gantt Bar Styles rolls up and shows in the summary task Hide Task Bar – Hides the Bar

Specify task dependencies Automatically a finish –to-start dependency is created

Task Dependencies You can specify start-to-start, finish-to-finish or start-to-finish

Lead and Lag Times Overlap tasks or enter lead / lag times Lag times are +ve values while lead times are –ve values Lag and lead can be entered as a % or absolute values

Constraints Set specific start or finish dates Specify a start date - start no earlier than (SNET) constraint is set Specify a finish date - finish no earlier than (FNET) constraint is set Use this feature sparingly

Add Deadlines Deadlines don’t affect scheduling mechanisms Microsoft Project will inform you that a task will finish past its deadline. You then have the option of adjusting the schedule to meet that deadline. Drag the green arrow to reset deadlines

Split tasks If work on the task is interrupted and then resumes later in the schedule

Assign Resources Specify type of resource work / material Specify the number of resource units available for this resource in the max. Units field, as a percentage. E.G., Type 300% to indicate three full-time units of a particular resource.

Specify Resource Groups For each material resource (supplies consumed throughout the project), in the material label field, type a measurement unit for the material resource, such as ton. Resource groups can be used for sorting, filtering, or grouping tasks by resources belonging to a particular group. You can use groups to indicate the department a human resource belongs to or to specify accounting codes for billing purposes.

Change work schedule for Resource Modify the individual resource calendar

Specify Costs for Resource Specify the Standard and Overtime rates

Specify Workgroup Information and availability for Resource Use this to specify long absences e.g. sabbatical leaves Independent of resource calendar

New Base Calendar If a group of resources has the same special working hours and days off, you can create a new base calendar for them

Assign Resources Support for Active Directory / Address Book / Microsoft Project Server Assign multiple resources at once (CTRL and drag) Replace a resource by choosing the resource and clicking replace then reassign a fresh resource A Valid work value can be entered then units = entered work/duration Automatic assignment of resources can be disabled in Tools / Options / General tab

Fix the task duration If a task is 8 hrs duration and 8 hrs work with a single resource adding a second resource reduces the duration to 4 hours (effort driven) Turn this feature off to increase the work to 16 hours Turn off globally in Options / Schedule

Plan Optimisation Duration Compression –Crashing –Fast Tracking Resource Levelling Heuristics

Edit resource assignments (Assignment Contours) Effective way to remove over allocation (shown in red) Just drag and drop tasks under the resource

Predefined Assignment Contours

Automatic Resource Levelling Levelling Order –Standard : Considers links, slack, dates and priorities –ID Only : Delays task with the highest ID –Priority : Priority of tasks takes precedence Level only within the available slack Adjust Individual assignments on a task : To level only over-allocated resources AVOID AUTOMATIC LEVELLING

Manual Resource Levelling Create Delays Remove or Replace resources Reduce Units

Creating Delays

Assign Costs to resources Default rates for all resources can be assigned (Tools / Options / General) If costs change use the Resource Information / Costs Tab and specify the costs with effective dates (useful if a resource gets a salary revision during the course of the project)

Set Fixed Costs Useful when the exact cost associated with a cost is known View / Table / Costs

Define When Costs Accrue Accrual can be prorated, at the start or at the end of a project

Review the cost of tasks and resources From the Resource sheet click View / Table / Cost

Cost distribution over a task Choose View / Task Usage Choose Format / Details / Cost

Resource Costs (Detail) Choose view / resource usage Choose format / details / cost

Resource Costs (Graphical) Choose view / resource graph Choose format / details / cost or Cumulative cost

Cost of Entire Project Choose Project / Project Information / Statistics

View the entire project From the GANT Chart Choose View / Zoom / Entire Project

Check the Project dates Check the project’s START and FINISH dates

Identify Critical Path Critical Path –Has Zero Slack –Tasks can’t be delayed without affecting overall schedule Use the GANTT chart wizard to identify the critical path

Viewing Critical Tasks Filter using the menu

Switching Views Choose View / More Views

Different Fields in a View View / More Views View / Table / More tables

Using Filters Interactive Filters can be applied Resource filters cannot be applied to tasks and vice versa

Sorting Tasks Variety of sorts are possible Renumbering tasks permanently Its possible to maintain the hierarchy of the subtasks to its parent task

Grouping Information Variety of Group by options are available

Save the Plan Save the plan with a baseline it helps in tracking your project To save the budget, enter the costs before saving the baseline Interim plans act as checkpoints, upto 10 interim plans can be saved

Earned Value Management Planned Value (PV) or Budgeted Cost of Work Schedule (BCWS) Earned Value (EV) or Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) Actual Cost (AV) or Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP)

EVM Cost Variance (CV) = EV – AC Schedule Variance (SV) = EV – PV Cost Performance Index = EV / AC Schedule Performance Index = EV/PV Positive Values are good. Negative Values Bad Ratio’s closer to 1 are good

Thank You