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The Benefits of Planning Using Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project has been round in one form or one other since the early '90s, however its utilization amongst professional project managers continues to be not as widespread as you might think. There are a variety of causes for this, even if it's thought of by many as being the industry normal benchmark for project management software.

One of many principal causes for project managers' obvious reluctance to embrace Microsoft Project is a lack of awareness in respect of how the software works. It's notoriously tough to efficiently self-educate MS Project, largely due to a lack of information in respect of defining and linking challenge tasks. The problem is that the Activity Sheet seems to suggest that one should enter activity begin and finish dates. That is the truth is exactly the wrong thing to do as amongst other points, it imposes what MS Project refers to as a 'constraint'. The wrong kind of constraint reduces flexibility and can forestall MS Project from re-scheduling duties ought to there be a change to the plan.

The right solution to outline to tasks is in actual fact to specify solely durations and permit Microsoft Project to set start and finish dates via its system of process linkage. Linkages outline a dependent relationship between tasks and enable a fluid schedule to be planned. If as an example a process is delayed, the effect on any dependent tasks can be displayed on the Gantt chart giving the challenge supervisor forewarning of possible scheduling issues. That is maybe the least understood aspect of Microsoft Project, particularly for the inexperienced consumer and really troublesome to show one's self.

Another excuse for venture managers' reticence is a lack of knowledge of the true scope of the software program's capability. In the suitable arms, Microsoft Project is an immensely highly effective scheduling tool, enabling the project manager to experiment with various 'what if' scenarios. The Gantt chart is the traditional method of representing the venture's timeline and have long since been thought-about a extremely helpful visual tool. Historically Gantt charts can be drawn out by hand and a fancy mission might take some considerable time to plan on this manner.

One downside with the hand-drawn plan is the problem of re-scheduling should it change into necessary. There is the place Microsoft Project scores closely against traditional methods. With a simple click on of the mouse, tasks might be re-scheduled and the Gantt chart immediately updated by the software. This will potentially be an enormous saving in time and leaves the project supervisor free to do what they do best.

An additional cause for some challenge managers' prejudice is probably a bad expertise with the software within the past. Project 2010 is a much improved instrument compared with earlier versions and most, if not all the known points, have been successfully addressed by Microsoft. As an example, the relatively poor financial reporting capability of Microsoft Project was dramatically improved in 2007 with the arrival of 'Visible Experiences'. These are graphs which are created from information which Project exports to Microsoft Excel. Excel mechanically creates a PivotTable based on the info and eventually converts it into PivotChart format. All this is achieved without the user requiring any detailed data of PivotTables and PivotCharts however the result is a very complete and person-friendly reporting package.

There are various causes then why mission managers have grown differ of Microsoft Project through the years, but I hope we have shown in this article that perhaps it is now time to take one other look.

MS Project 2007