Project Planning and Control with Microsoft Project

Prerequisites:

This course is suitable for those new to planning and control and/or Microsoft Project.
PC keyboard literacy with experience of MS Windows.

Course Description:

Effective planning and control is at the heart of successful project management and Microsoft Project is becoming an invaluable tool for those responsible for performing such functions on projects.

Providing delegates with a pragmatic approach to planning and control, this course looks at the principles behind building and tracking a realistic, achievable and workable plan using Microsoft Project. Delegates may choose either Microsoft Project 2000, 2002 or 2003 for the hands-on exercises, depending on the needs of their business.

Case study exercises throughout the course enable delegates to explore the consequences of project decision making in a risk-free environment.

This course combines a mixture of lecture and practical hands-on exercises.

Project Leading
Managing People in a Project Environment
Project Management

This course includes the following modules:

Overview of MS Project

• Navigating in the Project 2000/2002/2003 environment
• Global & local options (default settings)
• Views, tables & filters
• Working with global, project & resource calendars
• Organizer

Project Start-up

• Defining/agreeing terms of reference
• Project 2000/2002/2003 set-up

Defining a Work Breakdown Structure

• Top down approach
• Milestones and deliverables
• Entering/outlining the tasks
• Use of templates
• Defining task links
• Adding task notes

Allocating Estimates and Resources to Tasks

• Defining a resource pool
• Producing initial project estimates
• Estimating techniques
• Assigning resources and estimates to tasks
• Adjusting resource calendars
• Assigning task constraints
• Fixed units, duration & work
• Effort driven tasks
• Multiple resource rates
• Assigning fixed costs

Reviewing the Schedule

• Risk & contingency
• Modifying the plan
• Critical path analysis
• Identifying and resolving resource conflicts
• Resource levelling
• Strategies for reducing project duration
• Crashing the schedule

Planning for Control

• Feedback mechanism & frequency
• Identifing and quantifing control activities
• Baselining the plan

Customising the Environment

• Defining company standards
• Modifing/creating views, tables, filters & reports

Project Control

• Updating the plan
• Reviewing project status
• Printing and reporting project information

Multiple Projects

• Inserting project(s)
• Defining inter-project links
• Resource sharing