Introduction to Project Scheduling with Microsoft® Project®

This course is designed for a person who has an understanding of project management concepts, who is responsible for creating and maintaining project schedules and who needs software support to manage their project schedules. Please note that the course assumes no prior knowledge of Microsoft Project, so anyone experienced with the package may find this course too basic.

Introduction to Microsoft Project Basic navigation – making sense of the screen layout and introducing the key views, i.e.: Gantt Chart Resource Sheet Initial set-up Setting system values – e.g. auto scheduling and effort driven Creating project calendars Setting project start date Scheduling steps The five steps to building a project schedule Manual and automatic scheduling Defining activities The Work Breakdown Structure Work Packages Decomposing the Work Packages to identify tasks Basic tasks Summary tasks Milestones Sequencing activities Finish-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, Start-to-Start, Start-to-Start Lags and Leads Estimate activity resources What are resources? Assigning resources to tasks Using the Resource Sheet Balancing resources and time Resource availability Dealing with resource over-allocation (task inspector) Estimate activity durations Estimation types: Analogous, Parametric, Three-Point Assigning task durations Develop schedule Critical Path Method Identifying float (slack) Network Diagram and Gantt Chart views Resource levelling Schedule compression Highlighting the critical path Compression techniques: crashing, fast-tracking Setting a project baseline Is the schedule ready? (checklist) Baselining Recording and tracking progress Calendar and task sheet views Entering actual durations Comparing planned vs actual – variance table Dealing with late tasks