Home » Business & Work » Business

10 Ways to get more out of Microsoft Project

Ranked #6,033 in Business & Work, #180,122 overall

10 Ways to get more out of Microsoft Project

This is a guide for people that are trying to get more out of Microsoft Project. 10 of the best tips on how to improve your project management. Through this article we will explain why we recommend you follow these tips and in what circumstances you should consider adopting them.

Table of Contents

  1. 1. Do not use Project's Default settings
  2. 2. Tasks should have predecessors that reflect reality.
  3. 3. Use constraint dates sparingly
  4. 4. Don't put predecessor/successor constraints on summary tasks
  5. 5. Never assume resources are available 100% of the time
  6. 6. Don't put resources on summary tasks
  7. 7. Know Microsoft Project's limitations
  8. 8. 9. 10. - Bonus Tips
  9. Guestbook Comments
  10. Project Management from Amazon

1. Do not use Project's Default settings

If you use the out of the box settings for Microsoft Project everything works fine until you start to update your project plan only then will you notice some behaviour that you may not want or understand. When you change the number of resources or the amount of work in the task this will change the duration of the task. While this may be right in some circumstances it also may be wrong.

Usually when people change work or % allocation on a task you still have to deliver it on the same dates or possibly earlier. So we suggest making the below changes and updating the duration manually if it is required.

Task duration can be kept constant with 2 simple changes.

Go to the -> Tools menu and select -> Options and then select the "Schedule" tab

Change 1: Change "Default task type" to "fixed duration": what this does is change the way Microsoft Project calculates the task dates to be based on the duration of the task not the level that the resource is assigned.

Change 2: Uncheck "New tasks are effort driven" This means if you change effort on a task, the duration of the task will not change.

After making those changes you might want to set them as default for all new projects you create. If you already have existing Microsoft Project plans you'll have to double check the characteristics of tasks you've already created. This can be done by inserting the "effort driven" column and the "type" column into the Gantt chart view and then changing them to be the same as your new defaults (fixed duration and not effort driven).

Note: Both Fixed Work and Effort driven are best used when work is fixed like a fixed price contract and you are resource constrained to complete the work. If this describes most of your projects then shipped default may be ok for you.

2. Tasks should have predecessors that reflect reality.

Except for the first task in your plan (based on date not id), most tasks will have other tasks which have to be completed first.

E.g. you can't build the walls of house until after the foundation has been laid.

In this example the laying of the foundation is a predecessor task to building the walls.

If the plan uses successors and predecessors, then re-forecasting the entire plan is very easy and only involves changing a date or 2 rather than going through and changing the start date of every task.

Predecessors can be entered in the "predecessor" column of the Gantt chart view.

Different predecessor relationships can be entered most easily on the task details view on the "predecessors" tab. The task details can be opened by double clicking a task entry on the Gantt chart view.

Note: In some versions of Microsoft Project there is a maximum limit to the number of predecessors / successors you can enter of 100 for any single task or milestone. If you hit this magic number we suggest you create a Milestone that links to your task and then link off your new milestone to the remainder of your tasks.

3. Use constraint dates sparingly

This is a simple thing, which takes a little discipline to begin with but also saves you time in the long run when you update your plan.

Setting a start no earlier than constraint and entering a date means that the task will not start any earlier than the date specified no matter what happens (even if it otherwise could). So your project could be finishing later than it has to.

Constraints are great planning tools to use, be careful though, if you have to rework a plan with a lot of constraints each one will need to be rechecked after changes are made, that's why it's easier to use predecessor/successor relationships with tasks, as Microsoft Project will recalculate them after every change.

Note: This follows on from tip 2 and if you do both of these it will make updating and re- forecasting your plan much easier.

4. Don't put predecessor/successor constraints on summary tasks

Summary tasks provide a roll up of the tasks information below them, e.g. I need a summary of all the development tasks in my project.

Predecessors and successors on summary tasks can also cause your project to be planned to finish later than it could if you only use dependencies between tasks.

Look at the finish of "Task 4" for both of the schedules below. On the first schedule "Summary 2" finishes on the 15/3/07 this is due to the relationship with "Summary 1" being a predecessor to "Summary 2". This relationship is preventing "Task 3" from starting before the completion of "Task 2". If this was actually the case it is better to make "Task 2" a predecessor to "Task 3".

In reality "Task 2" and "Task 3" can run at the same time, this means that "Task 4" can finish on the 14/3/07, a day earlier than the previous example.

5. Never assume resources are available 100% of the time

With Microsoft Project's default settings when you enter a resource against a task Microsoft Project allocates it at 100% which means if the task goes for 1 week, that person will be working on the task 8 hours a day (40 hours per week).

If there is actually 40 hours of work to complete the task you have to ask yourself a question, are these people really available to work on your project 40 hours each week or will they be working on other projects, business as usual and doing all the usual things people do during their day.

The real world answer is somewhere between 50% and 90% of a person's time can be spent working on your project depending on your organisation.

As a rule of thumb start with an availability of 75% and go from there.

Change:
Go to - > view -> resource sheet
To change this you go to each resource and change the max units to 75% (or what you feel is appropriate).
Now when you add a resource to a task the most they can be put against a task is 75%.

6. Don't put resources on summary tasks

The purpose of the summary task is to roll up the information about the tasks below it. By putting resources on the summary task they get included in the summary information and the roll ups. The impact of putting resources on summary tasks is that it can cause budget / work to get double counted.

Insert the columns called "work" and "cost" in to your display.
Put in 2 tasks under a summary task.
On the tasks (not the summary task) put on a single resource.
For the Summary task "Cost" and "Work" is the sum of the 2 tasks underneath it.

When you put resources on summary tasks' the result is that the totals overstate the amount of work and associated costs. The work is also double counted on the resource allocation. So don't put resources on your summary tasks unless you understand the consequences.

7. Know Microsoft Project's limitations

Microsoft Project standard and professional editions do have limitations. They are restrictive to collaboration. Getting status of work requires phone calls, emails the possibility of multiple versions of the project plan and a high risk of something getting lost along the way.
It doesn't have a comprehensive set of tools that allow you to do reporting or manage issues risks and change requests, forget managing programs or project portfolios without installing Project Server, Portfolio Server, Share Point, Exchange Server, SQL Server etc.

You can't do the time sheeting for your staff.

Resource management is a separate module in addition to the modules listed above.
Project Management Software
So while this guide will help you get more out of Microsoft Project it can't help you move to the next level in project management, as this requires a centralised tool. So instead of spending years to implement Microsoft Project Server why not talk to Bijingo about their SaaS option (Software as a Service). It offers comprehensive functionality and can be implemented in 6-12 weeks. bijingo project allows you to import your Microsoft Project plans quickly and easily.
Bijingo Project Features
Have a look at Bijingo Project's features

8. 9. 10. - Bonus Tips

8. When you type in the Start or Finish fields in Microsoft Project, this automatically sets a constraint either start no earlier than the start date or finish no later than the finish date respectively. This will also cause additional maintenance when you need to re-forecast your work.

9. Be wary of "cut and paste" if you are integrating Microsoft Project with any other tools. When you cut and paste tasks the UID (Unique ID) gets changed. This may not give you the intended results with respect to integration with other tools.

10. If you want to improve your project delivery in a hurry Register for a demo with bijingo now.

Guestbook Comments

  • mutu26 Oct 16, 2011 @ 6:05 am | delete
    Determining given trouble is a ms project recovery. Present software owns some required facilities such as working with big mpp files, using high end, clear interface, launching under low system requirements, any version of Windows OS.
  • thompsoon Sep 19, 2011 @ 1:18 am | delete
    Very helpful thank you
  • anilsaini Sep 16, 2011 @ 4:11 am | delete
    nice lens
Show All

Project Management from Amazon

Loading

by

Bijingo

We develop and host a comprehensive software as a service Project Management solution via the web. Bijingo is suitable for any organisation wanting to... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags