Author: Praveen Malik
Praveen Malik, PMP, has two-plus decades of experience as a project management instructor and consultant. He regularly conducts project management workshops in India and abroad and shares his project management thinking in his blog, PM by PM.
Effectively Using Excel for Analyzing MS Project Data
MS Project (MSP) is an excellent tool for preparing and tracking project schedules. Excel is also a great tool for analyzing any type of data. So, which one should you use for schedule analysis? You probably know that MSP has a whole host of features for analyzing project schedules like Task Filters, Sorting, and Reports. It also provides different views like Resource Usage View and Tracking Gantt View for analyzing different aspects of a project schedule. Are these features are enough? Can MS Excel help you in any way beyond those items? The advantage of Excel is that it is more commonly used and can analyze any type of data. Microsoft introduced Visual Reports in MSP 2010, but as a whole, MSP still lacks universal appeal. In fact, these Visual Reports use Excel’s data analysis features to analyze MSP schedule data. I have written this article to take you beyond MSP’s Visual Reports capabilities. In this article, you will learn how to exploit Excel’s pivot tables for analyzing MSP data. This article follows up on my previous article, where I covered the utility of Excel for scheduling and how to import Excel data in MSP. MS Project Data and Excel Pivot tables In order to use Excel’s pivot tables for analyzing MSP data, you will have to first export MSP data to MS Excel. This can be easily done by going to File > Save Project As File, and choosing Excel Workbook as the file type. As an alternative, if the MSP data is not too large, you can simply copy and paste from MSP’s Gantt Chart View to an Excel worksheet. Let’s begin to understand pivot tables with the help of an example. Refer to Figure I below. It shows the task hours of two resources in different months. Let’s assume that we want to see the month-wise task hours for each resource. Here, a pivot table becomes very useful. A pivot table is made to calculate, summarize, and analyze any kind of data. You can use it for finding trends and variations in your data. For the purpose of scheduling, we can use a pivot table to identify gaps in work hours, which can be further used to change duration estimates and modify plans. Take the following steps to make a pivot table for the data presented in Figure I. 1. Select the data rows in the Excel worksheet. Refer to Figure II below. 2. Go to Insert menu and click on Pivot Table. Refer to Figure III below. 3. Select the default values in the Pivot table dialog box and click OK. Refer to Figure III below. 4. You will see the Pivot Table settings form. Use it to select the fields that you want to use in your Pivot table. You can also use this form to drag and drop the fields and change their respective positions. Refer to Figure IV below. 5. I have selected all the fields from our MSP data and used ‘Month’ as the main field. Refer to Figure VI below. Viola! We now have structured data, which only took a few minutes of work. This can be used to identify the work hour gaps. If required, you can use this analysis tool to modify your plan. Note: Older versions of MS Excel (pre 2013) sometimes show ‘blank’ instead of a no value. To eliminate this problem, you can follow the steps delineated in this article. Conclusion MS Project is a good tool for scheduling, but it has its limitations. MS Excel is a great complementary tool because it can be used to analyze different aspects of scheduling data. It can be used to find the problems and trends, which in turn can improve the project schedules. In this article, I have shown you the power of Excel’s pivot tables with the help of a small example. You should use it analyze your regular project data. You can try and use data from the various views available in MSP. Have you used MSP and Excel together in any way? Do you think MSP and Excel are complementary? What has been your experience so far? In what situations did you find pivot tables useful? I would love to hear about some of the use cases that you have tried.
Six Data Points Needed to Create a Great Project Communication Plan
Even before children learn to walk, they start to communicate. Human beings have the inherent gift of communication. It is the most basic part of our daily lives. But, what is there to plan in communication? Well, day to day mundane communication does not need any planning, but project communication requires serious planning. Try to think about a typical day in your professional life. How do you spend most of your time? Which aspects of project management take up the most substantial parts of your day? You probably only spend a small part of your day on budgeting or scheduling activities. Even risk management should not take up too much of your time. For most project managers, a major chunk of time is spent on meetings, tele-cons, email reading or writing, creating status reports, etc. All of these tasks are nothing, but part of project management communication plan It is said that project managers spend ninety percent of their time on communication. Most of our entire days are spent communicating. Communication is one of the most important aspects of project management. Hence, the communication plan becomes the most crucial ingredient of any project plan. I have written the following to help you to make a great, and actionable, communication management plan. You will find a step by step method in the following article. Additionally, you can read this article, which describes various constituents of a communication plan. What to Ask to Prepare a Great Communication Management Plan To prepare a great communication management plan, you need to answer five W’s and one H question. The five W’s are Who, Why, What, When, and Where, and one H is How. Answering these questions will give you a basis the six basic steps to create a communication management plan. Let’s take a detailed look at these questions. Who Needs Project Information? All project stakeholders need some information. The first step is to identify all the project stakeholders and make a list of them. A project stakeholder is any person, group, department, entity, or organization that is interested in or impacted by the outcome of the project. Although all stakeholders need information, all are not equal in what they need. They lie somewhere in-between two extreme ends of project spectrum. At the one end, stakeholders who are involved in day-to-day activities require a constant and regular flow of information. At the other end of the spectrum, stakeholders who are very distant from the project may only need a high level overview of the project every once in a while. As an example, senior project team members will be highly interested in the project and want to know almost everything that is happening on a daily basis. On the other hand, the CEO of a project performing organization may be happy with only high level quarterly status reports of all active projects. Most stakeholders, like customer representatives, sponsors, and vendors, will lie somewhere in-between the two ends of the spectrum. Why Do Stakeholders Need Information? After identifying and making a list of the project stakeholders, your next step should be to understand their interest in the project. You need to find out why they are involved in the project and what kind of information will help them to take the project forward. As an example, a project sponsor may be interested in financial and resource utilization information. This will help him/her to make the necessary changes to the project budget. Project sponsors may also be interested in schedule related information, but that information may not be of primary interest to them. A user champion, on the other hand, will be primarily concerned about scheduling information. Financial information is not relevant, as it will not help the user to do her job. What Should Be the Format of the Project Information? Once you have gathered together a list of the stakeholders and their interests, you can talk to them to ascertain the format of the information they need. It is possible that two different stakeholders have similar interests and similar information needs, but that the quantum and format of information required by them is entirely different. For example, both user champion from the customer organization and your reporting manager may want to know about the project risks, but their expectations might be very different—a user champion might want a detailed report on technical risks, whereas your reporting manager may want high level risk information. When Should the Information Be Shared While the format of the information to be shared is important, equally important is frequency and timing of sharing such information. You can perform this step along with the step above. When talking to the stakeholders, determine their overall communication requirements. For example, your reporting manager might need weekly status reports, but your Project Management Office (PMO) may only need status reports on a monthly basis. Where to Put the Shared Information This step is important for establishing a communication protocol between you and your stakeholders. You can jointly discuss and determine the communication medium for sharing the information. Different type of information will require different communication channels and storage mechanisms. For example, a status report in a Word document can be sent over email and stored in a shared repository. How to Produce the Information That will be Shared After determining the communication requirements of various stakeholders, you will need to document how the requisite information will be produced, who will produce it, and what tools will be used to produce it. For example, you can document that scheduling reports will be produced by the project manager. Secondly, he/she will use MS Project to track the schedule and disseminate scheduling information on a weekly basis. You will able to produce a good communication management plan by following the above six steps but, in most cases, you will need to repeat these steps throughout the project. The reason being is that project stakeholders and their communication requirements are not static. They can change as a project progresses. Project managers should keep on identifying new stakeholders and their communication needs on a regular basis. They should update the communication management plan when the new communication requirements are identified. Contents of a Communication Management Plan A well-made communication management plan contains the following information: Stakeholder identification information Stakeholder name Department/organization Contact information Stakeholder communication needs Stakeholder’s interest Reason for information needs Description of information needs Information to be communicated Format Language Level of detail Timeline and Frequency Method and Medium for communicating Responsible Party For creating For distributing For storage For destroying For authorizing the release of confidential information Glossary of common terms used Conclusion Projects are performed by groups of individuals. Group work and collaboration is extremely important for the success of a project. Project managers should start developing a communication management plan immediately after defining the initial scope of the project. This way they can start taking inputs from the stakeholders and increase the collaboration. Without a sound communication plan, collaboration will not be effective. Communication is an integral part of group work, without which projects can get out of hand. Gaps in these data points can lead to project failure. In your opinion, which project document is as important a communication plan? What practices do you follow for defining a communication plan? Does your organization use a defined template? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Importing Data from Excel to MS Project
MS Excel is a generic tool that can be used in many situations. In terms of project management, it is an average tool for preparing project schedules, at best. It is generally believed that MS Project is a much better solution than Excel could ever be for project scheduling. This is because Excel has some inherent disadvantages for creating and maintaining project schedules. Here is a quote from senior MPUG author, Keith Wilson, “Using Excel to manage project information doesn’t make sense, since Project is set up to increase productivity and effectiveness.” (Read his full article here.) I, too, believe that Excel is a cumbersome tool and has serious limitations in creating and maintaining schedules. However, there are times where it becomes necessary to use Excel in conjunction with MSP. Let’s back up for a moment. MSP is an expensive tool and its licenses are costly. To save costs, many organizations buy licenses only for the project managers who are responsible for preparing and maintaining project schedules. This keeps costs under control, but leaves team members without a way to track a project’s progress and schedule, which can be detrimental for project delivery. In such situations, it becomes necessary to use a generic tool like MS Excel along with MSP to maintain project schedules. In this scenario, the project manager can start by preparing a high level project schedule, and then ask team members to fill in their respective tasks. The team members can use Excel to create parts of the project schedule and share updated Excel sheets with the project manager. The project manager can then use import functionality of MSP to integrate and merge the Excel data. This allows the project managers to concentrate on the overall schedule without wasting any time on mundane lower level activities. As you can see, importing data from Excel into MSP can be useful. Let’s look at the steps involved. Steps to Import Project Data from Excel to MS Project You can look at an article written by Ellen Lehnert to understand the basics of import functions. This article would be useful if you are looking to do a one-time import of Excel data in a new Project file. However, in most cases, PMs would need more than a one-time import as project scheduling and tracking is a complex task. You need a constant integration of MS Project and Excel data by importing and merging Excel data periodically into your Project file. Let’s look at the steps to importing Excel data into an existing MSP file. 1. Open MS Project. 2. Click on File > Open. 3. Choose ‘Excel Workbook’ from the dropdown menu, instead of the default option. Refer to Figure I below. 4. After select the Excel file, MSP will start an Import Wizard. Click on the ‘Next’ button to continue and follow the Wizard to import the Excel file. Refer to Figure II below. 5. Select ‘New map’ and click ‘Next.’ This feature links the Excel columns to MSP. Refer to Figure III below. 6. On the next screen, you can do one of the three things as shown in Figure IV. Here, we will merge data into an existing project. This way you can integrate team members’ data into your MSP file and will not need to re-enter the data. 7. Then, you can choose to import one of three types of data, Tasks, Resources, or Assignments. Refer to Figure V below. You will find an example in the section for importing Tasks from Excel to MSP. 8. On the next screen, map your Excel columns to appropriate MSP columns. Refer to Figure VI below. This is the last step for importing the data. Simply, click on the ‘Next’ button and MSP will do its magic. An Illustration for Importing Tasks Let’s assume that you are a project manager, and you want to create a high level WBS giving liberty to you team members to define the lower level tasks. You have a high level project schedule defined in MSP. Refer to Figure VII. You can export this schedule as an Excel file and provide it to your team members. You can also ask them to create lower level tasks in Excel and share their respective sheets to you. Refer to Figure VIII below. This may be what the Excel sheet created by your team member looks like. Now follow the steps in the previous section. Project will automatically import the data into the correct columns and rows and your project schedule will begin to take shape. Refer to Figure X for updated MSP Gantt chart. A Few Important Points to Note You will have to ensure that names of Excel columns are the same as MSP Gantt Chart column names. Otherwise, you will need to map the columns yourself. The number in Excel’s ID column should be synchronized with MSP to ensure that tasks are imported in the correct rows. If this is the case, imported data will come in the correct order. The Project Start Date from MSP is automatically populated base on the Start Date of the first task. All the other successor dates (Start and Finish) are automatically calculated. MSP outlines all imported tasks and summary task data is automatically calculated. In fact, MSP does a little more than just importing the tasks. It will also add a new related resource for you. Refer to Figure XI to see an example of a newly added resource. Conclusion The importing of date to MS Project is a great tool for project managers. It not only saves on cost, but also saves a lot of time. In addition to merging your team members’ data, you can use the method I’ve described here to exchange information with your clients and vendors. In this article, I have given an example of importing tasks from Excel, but, as stated, you can also import resources and assignments. Play around with importing other fields that are needed in your project. What has been your experience with using MSP and Excel together? In what situations have you found this combination of tools useful? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Top Five MS Project Scheduling Mistakes
I’ve been covering a variety of MS Project (MSP) tips and guidelines in my last few articles. This time, I thought I’d write about the most common errors found in MSP schedules. When I started using MSP in 1997, I had to learn it on my own without much guidance. During those early days, I know I made quite a few mistakes creating my project schedules. Even after so many years, I still notice similar mistakes in other project managers’ schedules. I think this happens as many of them, as I did, start using MSP without proper guidance. I have written this article to dissect five top scheduling mistakes. Most of them have to do with the use of dates in MSP. Dates are essential ingredients of a project schedule. Read on. 1. Date-Based Planning A basic project schedule contains tasks and dates. Most new project managers begin to create their project schedule by entering dates manually, but this is problematic. Dates should be automatically derived from tasks and task predecessors. If a task date is manually entered, MSP will not be able to automatically calculate and update the project schedule. Get out of the mindset of starting with dates, as this defeats the whole purpose of using a scheduling tool in the first place, and a tool, like MSP, should make things easier by automating some of the work. Even though dates are central to a project schedule, scheduling should center around tasks instead. Start by creating a list of tasks. Then, add estimated durations to each task. Lastly, you should add predecessor(s) to each task. This way MSP will be able to automatically calculate the project dates and update them whenever any predecessor is modified. To read more about the disadvantages of date based planning, check out this article. 2. Manually Scheduled Tasks By default, ‘Task Mode’ of a new task is set as ‘Manually Scheduled’ in MSP. This means that MSP does not automatically calculate or update the dates, duration, and other attributes of a task whenever a predecessor attribute is changed. Some project managers do not know about ‘Task Mode’ and it’s settings, while some do know that the setting can be changed to ‘Auto Scheduled.’ By changing the mode to ‘Auto Scheduled,’ you don’t have to manually analyze the entire schedule every time a task is modified. Furthermore, MSP automatically will add a date constraint to tasks when you manually enter a date. The date constraints are sometime very difficult to manage in a large project. Change the default ‘Task Mode’ to ‘Auto Scheduled’ for all new tasks in a project. To do this, navigate to the project options dialogue by clicking File > Options and selecting the ‘New Tasks Created’ as ‘Auto Scheduled’ under ‘Scheduling options.’ Refer to my previous article for some additional details about auto scheduling. 3. Skipping the Baseline A schedule is not a schedule unless it is baselined. Without a proper baseline, you won’t know what your original dates were, and you will not be able to track the project. I have seen some project managers saving a separate copy of their original schedule thinking that it will suffice. They think that a backup of original schedule is enough for tracking a project, but a baseline is much more than a simple backup. It allows you to compare current plan and actuals against the original schedule. MSP also allows you to save and compare multiple versions of baselines against each other. You cannot do these things by using a simple backup file. In fact, comparing two schedule files manually is next to impossible. Read my detailed article on how to save and use baselines. 4. Not Tracking the Project What is the use of a plan if you do not follow it and track it regularly? Depending on the size of your project and organizational guidelines, you should track your project schedule regularly. If you track you project weekly, updating MS Project schedule will be easy and it will take only a few minutes. If you wait to look at your project for a month or more, the tracking will require a couple of hours. My previous article on how to track project scheduling using Actual Dates will help you to understand best practices of this. 5. Not Having Milestones Milestones make project tracking easy. A milestone is a point in time, which is used to monitor and control a project schedule. It is usually a zero duration task with no assignments. In MSP, it acts as check point. Having milestones allows you to quickly and visually check if a project schedule is on track or not. Tracking and reporting becomes much harder without appropriate milestones. You should ensure that there are enough milestones in your schedule and that they are evenly spread throughout the project. To understand more about milestones and project reporting, click here. Conclusion MS project is intuitive and easy to understand. In fact, I believe it is the easiest scheduling tool out there, however, I also believe usability is MS Project’s biggest strength as well as it biggest weakness. Most people just open it up and immediately start, which creates a lot of problems at a later date. Novice project managers make umpteen scheduling mistakes, which are not immediately understood. Furthermore, MSP has its quirks. Behind the scenes, some of things are not as straightforward as they seem. Before you start using MSP, seek proper guidance from an expert. Scheduling, baselining, and tacking go hand in hand. Make sure you fully understand each, lest your project goes haywire. And, keep reading MPUG’s articles! Myself, along with other contributors, are continually working to publish content that covers the nitty gritty of this scheduling tool. In this article, I’ve listed what I think are the top five scheduling mistakes, but there are many more. What has been your experience so far? Which one of the above, in your opinion, is the most common mistake? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
A Beginners Guide to Baselining a Project
Throughout my career as a project manager, I have been through many project audits, but the first one is etched in my memory. During that first audit as a PM, I was asked to show the Microsoft Project schedule of my project. When I showed the schedule, the auditor asked me to then show the project baseline. I had a scant idea about project baselines at that time, but I had not saved one for the project. I told the auditor that we didn’t need one, as we were completing the work as per the defined schedule even if we have to work extra hours. Although my team was serious about the work and always completed it within the defined timeline, my answer to the auditor’s question was pretty naïve. Overall the audit went well, but it was a good learning experience for me. I now can see that the project baseline should always be saved. In this article, we will cover why a project baseline is required, how to set it up in Microsoft Project (MSP), and how to use it for tracking a project. You can also read a previous article that provides some of the best practices for baselining a project. An MS Project Baseline A baseline contains data that can be used for comparison or control. MSP gives users the option to save multiple baselines for each task. It allows you to save baseline data for Work, Duration, Start & Finish Dates, Cost, and a few other fields. This way you can compare actual data against the original plan. Why is a Baseline Required? At the first glance, the baseline feature of MSP looks redundant and counterintuitive. You might wonder why a baseline is required if Project already provides the option for entering actual data like Actual Start & Actual Finish, Actual Duration, and Actual Cost. In one of my previous articles, I explained why MSP provides a facility to save three sets of dates (planned dates, actual dates, and baseline dates). Each of the three sets of dates has its own purpose. Baseline Start/Finish fields are used to store the original plan dates, Start/Finish fields are used to store the current plan dates, and Actual Start/Finish fields are used to store the actual dates of a task. You can similarly save three sets of data for other fields including Work, Duration, and Cost. How to Save a Baseline? You can follow the below mentioned steps for creating a new project and baselining it: 1. Open MS Project and go to Gantt Chart view. 2. Create new tasks as shown in the figure below. 3. Insert following columns in the Gantt chart view: Baseline Duration Baseline Start Baseline Finish Refer to Figure II below. Note: If you want to, you can also add other fields like Cost and Baseline Cost fields in the Gantt chart. 4. Go to Project > Set Baseline. A new dialog will open. Refer to Figures III and IV below. The dialog box presents two choices. You can either ‘Set Baseline’ or ‘Set Interim Plan.’ You can do so for the ‘Entire Project’ or for ‘Selected Tasks.’ You can go with the defaults for saving the first project baseline. ‘Set Interim Plan’ is important only for saving your temporary work while you are finalizing the plan. 5. Once you ‘Set Baseline,’ you will notice that Baseline Duration and Dates are automatically calculated. Refer to Figure V below. 6. Baseline fields remain same even If you change the Duration or Dates fields. As an example, let’s change the Duration of Alpha from 10 days to 7 days. Refer to Figure VI below. You will notice that the changed cells are highlighted in a light blue color. When you change the Duration of Alpha its Finish date also changes. In addition, Duration and Date fields of successor tasks and summary tasks also change automatically. However, you will also notice that the Baseline fields are not impacted. The Baseline remains same even though the project schedule has undergone a significant change. Baselining helps us in preserving the project schedule. How to View a Project Baseline? You probably have realized by now that MSP does not show the baseline data in the Gantt Chart view by default. However, MSP provides a few other options for viewing and using baselines. You can view baselines by using one of the following options: 1. Go to Project > Project Information. A new dialog will open. Click on the ‘Statistics’ button to show high level baseline information. Refer to Figure VII and VIII below. 2. You can use the Tracking Gantt Chart instead of Gantt Chart. The Tracking Gantt will show baseline data for each task. It will show this data along with the current plan and actual data. Refer to Figure IX and X below. The Tracking Gantt also shows the baseline plan, the current plan, and actual data using bars on the right side. In the above figure, the grey bars depict the baseline plan, while the blue and red bars represent the current plan. The blue and red bars show non-critical tasks and critical tasks respectively. As the project progresses, the current plan may change. The blue and red bars will follow the current plan, but the grey bars, representing the baseline, will stay the same. How to Clear a Baseline in MS Project? You might want to clear a baseline if you have accidently saved an incorrect baseline. This is quite easy. You can do so by going to Project > Clear Baseline > Clear Baseline. Here, you will need to choose an existing baseline for which to clear the data. You can either clear the baseline for the entire project or just for a few selected tasks. Refer to Figure XI below. How to Save Multiple Baselines? At times, you may need to save a new baseline as a project’s scope has changed. MSP allows you to save eleven baselines. You can do so by going to Project > Set Baseline and choosing one of the unsaved baselines. You should be careful not to choose an existing baseline as it will overwrite it with new data. How to Revise a Baseline? There may be occasion where you need to baseline only part of a project as new tasks are added. MSP allows to update a baseline for the selected tasks. You can update a baseline by going through the following steps: 1. Go to Gant Chart and select the task(s) for which you want to update the baseline. 2. Go to Project > Set Baseline and pick the baseline that you want to update. 3. Under the ‘For’ section, click on ‘Selected Tasks.’ 4. If the selected task(s) are subtasks, then you can choose ‘Roll up baseline.’ This way summary tasks will also be baselined. Conclusion Monitoring and controlling your project is an essential aspect of Project Management. It can happen only if a project is properly planned and planned data is kept safe. The baselining feature of Project not only saves planned data, but also helps in comparing actual data against the original plan. Baselining is one of the most critical features of MSP. You should always baseline the schedule after defining it. This way you will have an original set of dates if/when your project schedule changes. What type of difficulties have you faced while baselining a project? Do you think eleven baselines are enough for a project? If not, how many do you think are required? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
The Best Ten Microsoft Project Tips for Beginners
Have you ever driven a stick shift car? If you’re new to it, it can give you a lot of trouble. You have to use your left foot for the clutch, while the right foot has to alternate between the brake and accelerator pedals. On top of that, you have to change the gear as you vary the car speed. You also have to balance the wheel without taking your eyes off the road. And, while you are doing all this, your mind has to stay attuned to the traffic around you. Someone may think that the job of a trapeze artist is much simpler only because they don’t have to balance so many things. Many new users of Microsoft Project (MSP) feel the same way. They have to take care of so many aspects of the tool without losing the sight of project plan. However hard you may try, invariably, something goes wrong. Don’t worry! Most probably, you are not at fault. Your planning doesn’t suck. Most of us have been there, but we have gotten better. It takes time to understand how Ms Project works—but that’s where this article comes in! I’m going to quickly run through ten simple things that you must know before you start creating a project plan using MSP. If you follow these tips, I promise, you’ll be driving smoothly before you know it. 1. Enter the Project Start Date Purpose: Ms Project does all date calculations based on the project’s start date, so, it will automatically (and correctly) calculate all the task dates if you change the start date. MSP sets the start date as the current date by default when you create a new project. You should change it if your project is going to start on a different date. If you prefer, you can schedule your project from the project finish date instead of the start date. This is helpful if your project has a committed deadline. However, since you are a beginner, I would suggest you to stick to project start date for now. Refer to the below figures which illustrate how to change the project start date. 2. Change the Default Task Setting from Manual to Auto Schedule Purpose: By default, MSP does not automatically calculate task dates, which usually creates scheduling problems. By default, MSP tasks are manually scheduled, which means that the MSP does not change the dates or duration of manually scheduled tasks. However, dates should change automatically when there is a change in predecessor(s) tasks. Consider two tasks: T1 and T2. Task T2 has finish to start dependency with T1, which means that T2 should start immediately after T1 is completed. This, in turn, means that the dates of T2 should automatically get changed if dates of T1 are changed. While there are occasions when you might need your tasks to be manually scheduled, for the majority of beginners, I recommend that you set them to be auto-scheduled. If you have already added a project start date, then MSP starts all new tasks on the project’s start date by default. See the tip 1 above. Similarly, a task is changed if its predecessor changes. Keep reading! Refer to figure III below to change the default task set. 3. Define Project Calendar Purpose: The MSP calendar defines high level scheduling rules for tasks, meaning that you can define that Monday to Friday are working days and Saturday and Sunday are non-working days. MSP will take care of these directives while scheduling tasks. A MSP calendar can be used to specify working days and time, non-working days and time, and general holidays. By default, MSP includes three different base calendars. These are: Before you put in your tasks, you should define your own project’s calendar(s). You can start by using one of the above base calendars for your project schedule. Then, put in your organization’s holidays and working time and assign to project resources. Note: MSP has three different types of calendars (Project calendar, Resource Calendar, and Task Calendar). In this tip I have talked only about Project Calendar. You should only tinker with the other types when you become more comfortable with MSP. Refer to the figures IV and V below to define a project calendar. 4. Start with a List of Tasks Purpose: You have to plan before you start using a planning tool. A planning tool like MSP can help you in your planning, but it cannot replace you. You have to supply the information (list of tasks), so that the tool can do scheduling calculations for you. You should start by creating a detailed list of project tasks that you need to schedule. Otherwise, you will miss things that will cause trouble later. It is difficult to insert a new task in the middle of a running project because it can disturb the whole schedule. If you do not know all the tasks at the beginning of a project, then you should list higher level tasks and decompose them later. See also the following tip. 5. Avoid Putting Dates and Duration of Tasks in the Beginning Purpose: Dates are automatically calculated by MSP if the task relationships are properly defined. You should not even think about the dates, duration estimates, or any other task attributes before creating a list of tasks. You should first create the overall structure of project tasks and relationships among them before thinking about durations and dates. 6. Create WBS using Indent and Outdent Purpose: A WBS divides and sub-divides a project into more manageable components. It reduces the risk and increases the predictability. This goes along with the tip above. While creating the list, decompose the higher-level tasks into sub-tasks. You can use the Indent and Outdent feature of MSP for creating WBS and work packages. 7. Define Task Relationships Purpose: Only you, as a project manager, can define the working relationship between tasks. MSP will automatically calculate the task dates after you have properly defined the relationships. After creating a WBS and defining lowest level tasks, you should define network dependencies and relationships between tasks. As you define the relationships, the dates of successor activities will be automatically calculated. You can refer to my other article on defining actual dates to understand the importance of these relationships. 8. Make a Note of Dates Constraints Purpose: Some tasks have a client or environment-imposed date constraints. You should identify these date constraints and insert them in MSP, so that it can take care of date calculations. You may want to have control over tasks dates for some of the tasks. You can manually schedule these tasks and make them independent of any other tasks. MSP puts a constraint on manually scheduled tasks as soon as you associate a date with them. You must make a note of these tasks and their constraints, as MSP will not change them automatically. 9. Don’t Put Predecessor(s) in Summary Tasks Purpose: Summary tasks are automatically calculated by MSP. The calculations might not happen correctly if there are predecessor(s) in the summary tasks. The dates and duration of a summary task is automatically calculated by MSP. You should add predecessors only to lowest level tasks. 10. Save Baseline Purpose: A baseline sets up project standard. MSP measures project performance against the defined baseline. After defining the schedule, you should baseline it. This way you will have an original set of dates even if your project schedule changes. You can refer to my other article on how to define project baseline to understand its importance. Conclusion I wrote these tips for the new MSP user, but these are not essentially beginner tips. These tips can be implemented by anyone from newbie to experienced professional to create any new project. As they say, practice makes a makes perfect. Follow these tips and use them in your project regularly. Very soon you will become expert in MSP. What type of difficulties have you faced while developing a MSP schedule? How did you overcome them? What other tips would you like to share with your fellow professionals? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Be sure to check out my recent webinar (recording and transcript). More MPUG Resources
How to Correctly Setup Actual Dates in MS Project
How do you expect MS Project (MSP) to behave when you enter an Actual Start date for a task? You would likely expect it to store the date in the ‘Actual Start’ field and stop there, but MSP does something more than that. MSP also changes the ‘Start’ date field if the Actual Start is different from the Planned Start. Let us do a small exercise to illustrate the best practices for dealing with dates in MSP. 1. Open MSP and insert columns for Actual Start and Actual Finish in the Gantt chart view. Refer to figures I and II below. 2. Enter a new task. MSP treats Start and Finish dates as the planned dates. It uses the Project Start date as a default date for these fields. It will put ‘NA’ by default in Actual date fields. See figure III below. 3. Now put a number in the Duration field. You will notice that the Finish date is automatically calculated, but that nothing changes in the Actual dates. Refer to figure IV below. 4. Enter an Actual Start date that is different from the Start date. You will notice that the Start date, too, changes to Actual Start date and a new Finish date is calculated. Refer to figure V below. The Conundrum of Actual Dates Let me give you an explanation for why Actual dates change planned dates by walking you through another exercise. You can also read this article for more information. 1. Add a second task in MSP, and put a number in the Duration field. Refer to figure VI below. 2. Put a Finish to Start relationship between the first and the second task. Refer to figure VII below. 3. Enter an Actual Finish date for the first task that is different from the Finish date. You will notice that the Finish date, too, changes to the Actual Finish date. Refer to figure VIII below. Now this seems to be completely logical. The second task is dependent on the first, so it can start only after the first task is finished. MSP recognizes this and automatically changes the planned Start date of the second task. MSP treats ‘Start’ and ‘Finish’ dates as pertaining to the current schedule. It maintains the schedule by automatically changing them if the dates of a Predecessor task changes. However, this creates another problem. What if we wanted to see the original plan date and wanted to track a project’s actual progress against it? We use Baseline dates. Baseline Dates MSP has a third set of dates, which are used to store the original plan. These are called Baseline dates, and they help in tracking and in the reporting of a project. Let us do a third exercise, which I hope will shed some light on how to use Baseline dates. 1. Create a new project in MSP and insert four columns in the Gantt chart view: Actual Start Actual Finish Baseline Start Baseline Finish Refer to figure IX below. 2. Enter two new tasks and make the second task dependent on the first. MSP will put ‘NA’ by default in the Actual and Baseline date fields. Refer to figure X below. 3. Put a number in the Duration field of both the tasks. Finish dates for these tasks will automatically change. Refer to figure XI. 4. Set Baseline dates. The baseline dates are automatically set to Start and Finish dates respectively, but Actual dates will remain ‘NA.’ Refer to figures XII and XIII below. 5. Enter the Actual Start date for the first task (a different date than the Start date). You will notice that the Start date will change to Actual Start date, but that the Baseline Start will remain same. Baseline dates store the original set of planned dates. They can be used to track the project progress. MSP Best Practices My recommended best practices for dealing with dates in MSP are listed below: Always define a predecessor task when entering a new task. You can do this for all your tasks except for the first one. This way MSP will automatically calculate Start and Finish dates of successors. Avoid assigning resources to summary tasks. Avoid linking summary activities. Always use set Baseline dates after creating the initial schedule. This way you will be able to track the project progress against the original schedule. Take care of task types while creating and tracking project tasks. You can use a combination of entering Actual dates directly in the Gantt chart view or use percentage finish option. Conclusion MSP has three sets of dates. All of them have their own purpose. Baseline dates store the original schedule, Start/Finish dates store the current schedule, and Actual dates are used to track the ongoing and finished tasks. Did you know MSP has nine other set of Baseline, Planned, and Actual dates? Have you used them? Which set of dates to you work with most often? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Learn how an MPUG Membership helps individuals and teams become better project managers and Microsoft Project users through Microsoft Project Training. Join MPUG to attend live training webinars, access 500+ hours of on-demand sessions, receive certificates of completion and earn the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs) that you need. Watch an MPUG training webinar for free and improve your Microsoft Project skills in less than 1 hour. [ezcol_1third] FREE MPUG Resources 15 Tips for New Users MPUG Newsletter Want access to more? Join MPUG Today! [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third] Microsoft Project Resources Microsoft Project User Group Online Training Automating Microsoft Project Try Microsoft Project for FREE! Microsoft Project Certifications Microsoft Project 2019 Courses [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third_end] Additional Resources Create a Monthly Cash Flow Report in Microsoft Project 2016 What is Project Management? [/ezcol_1third_end]
Milestone Reporting Using Gantt Charts in MS Project
Gantt charts are very popular with project managers and senior managers. They are primarily used to create and communicate project schedules but they can also be used for preparing status reports and giving presentations. They can be combined with project milestones to create richer status reports and presentations. Gantt charts can be easily prepared in MS Project (MSP), but they are very plain and rudimentary in their default form. That said, MSP provides ways to customize and improve Gantt charts for making them more presentable. In my previous article, I talked about four methods, which can be used to customize Gantt charts in MSP. The first method we talked about was customizing Gantt charts by using the ‘Bar Styles’ feature of MSP. In this article, we will take a deeper look at ‘Bar Styles’ and combine them with milestones to create Milestone charts. Milestone charts are much better than simple Gantt charts for presenting project status as they depict the status much more succinctly. Before reading further, I would suggest you to look at the MPUG article on Creating Milestone Reports in Microsoft Project. It shows a picture of a Milestone chart, and here we will endeavor to create a similar chart by using Gantt chart and milestone combination. Project Milestones What is a Milestone? Cambridge dictionary defines a milestone as “a stone or post at the side of the road that shows the distance to various places, especially to the nearest large town.” While travelling on a road, you likely see a milestone and just pass it by without stopping. Similarly, a project milestone is a significant event or achievement. It is a specific point in project lifecycle. Below are a few examples of project milestones: Project or phase kick-off dates Product rollout date Project deadlines The Importance of Milestones It is very important to define and communicate milestones to the stakeholders including team members, senior management, vendors, and customers. Following are some of the reasons for defining and communicating the milestones: They are easily understood by everyone and present the top level view of the project. Everyone gets to know about the important project dates/events. It is very easy to communicate project status using milestones. They can be used for identifying dependencies / project risks. They provide a sense of accomplishment to the team members. Milestones in MS Project In MSP, by default, a task is represented as a line (bar) and a milestone is represented as a diamond. Refer to the Figure below to see a task and milestone. MSP considers any task with zero duration as a milestone, but you can also make non-zero duration tasks milestones. For example, client approval is a process that can take a few days, so you may want to make it a milestone. You can follow the below mentioned steps to make non-zero duration tasks milestones: Select the task you want to make a milestone. Right-click on the task and click ‘Information.’ Alternatively, you can click on ‘Information’ in the ‘Properties’ group in the main menu. Refer to Figures II and III below. 3. Click the ‘Advanced’ tab. Refer to the Figure below. 4. Check ‘Mark task as milestone,’ and then click OK. Examples of milestones with zero duration and non-zero durations are shown in the Figure below. You will notice that a both zero-duration and non-zero duration milestones have a diamond shape, which makes it impossible to find the duration of a milestone from only its shape. This is not very intuitive as you cannot visually differentiate between zero-duration and non-zero duration milestones. Customizing Bar Styles The default Gantt chart view in MSP has some limitations, but these can be overcome by using the ‘Bar Styles’ feature. The ‘Bar Styles’ dialog box can be opened either by right-clicking anywhere in the blank area in the Gantt chart view and choosing the ‘Bar Styles’ or by clicking at the bottom right of Format->Gantt Chart Style. Refer to Figures VI and VII below. The ‘Bar Styles’ dialog box is shown in Figure VIII below. You can define your own task types by using this dialog box. You can also change color, shape, pattern, and few other bar properties of standard and custom task types. There are two parts of the ‘Bar Styles’ dialog box. They are the upper part, which displays a table, and lower part which is used to customize the bars. The upper part of the dialog box has following fields: Name – This column lists the name of standard and custom task types. Standard types are shown in the table, while custom types can be added by inserting a new row in the table. For example, in our case, standard and custom types could be ‘Milestone’ and ‘Unfinished Milestones.’ Appearance – This column displays how the bar will look. The appearance can be customized by using the lower part of the dialog box. You can use various shapes and color. Show for Tasks – This column lists the properties of a task. You can customize a bar for various properties with ‘Not Started’, ‘Finished Late’, ‘Critical,’ etc. Refer to Figure IX below. 4. Row – This displays the number of bars to be shown for a task type. You can show up to four bars for a particular task type. This helps in showing the current status of a task. For example, Row 1 can be used for showing baseline dates, while Row 2 could be used for the current schedule. Refer to Figure X below. 5. From and To – This one lists the Start and Finish of a bar. Note: You can customize ‘Bar Styles’ of the Tracking Gantt chart view, also. A Tracking Gantt is much more useful for status reporting and presentations. Filters and Print Legends There are several other options for making presentation reports: Use the filter option in MSP to show only Milestone tasks. Refer to Figure XI below. 2. You can also change the legends shown in the printed version. Refer to another article that provides information about changing legends in MSP. Conclusion Milestone charts are extremely useful for presentations and reporting. Senior management and customers can easily make out the project status by just looking at them. Before presenting milestone charts, you should standardize the colors and legends to avoid any confusion. Start using the advanced formatting features of MSP like ‘Bar Styles’ and ‘Filters’ to make Milestone charts. What type of visual reports do you use for making presentations to senior management and customers? Do you think Milestone charts are more useful? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.