Microsoft Project Introduction

Either producing an ad campaign at work or renovating your kitchen at home, you would be glad to have knowledge of such a powerful tool for managing your projects.
A project is a temporary initiative to create a unique result which has a definite starting point and ending point in time. When the desired result has been achieved, the project is over.
This lesson will explain some basic knowledge and skills you need to start using Project,the essentials you need to build a simple project file. By exploring the Project interface, creating a blank Project file, adding tasks, defining resources,assigning resources to tasks, and saving your Project file, you will lay the foundation that will enable you to use Project effectively.

• Project Management

You might be an experienced project manager or novice, with previous training in project management, or operating by instinct alone. Regardless of your project management experience and training, this topic reviews some basic project management concepts so that you can better understand Microsoft Project, its administration and supervision of projects using knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques. By learning about project management, you will succeed in completing your projects on time, within budget, and according to specifications.

• Navigate and Customize the Project Interface

Now that you have reviewed some basic information about project management, you can start learning how to create a project file.In this topic, you will learn about different methods for creating new Project files. You will navigate the Microsoft Project interface to become familiar with the program’s basics.The largest area on the Project interface is the view. Each view shows you a different aspect of your project.
Microsoft Project also comes preloaded with a dozen templates with a variety of different project types. Using a template can save you time because you do not have to create the project structure from scratch.

• Add Tasks to a Project

Once you have created a blank Microsoft Project file, you will need to fill it with information about your project. The first set of critical project data are tasks – they are the building blocks of effort that need to be done to execute your project. In this topic, you will enter the tasks that must be performed to complete the project, estimate how much time is needed to perform each task, and you can use them to break a project into manageable pieces of work.

• Add Resources to a Project

You have entered project tasks into a blank Microsoft Project file, and the second critical set of data to enter are project resources. Resources are people, equipment, materials, or other costs that you will need to accomplish a project task.In other words, resources are the staff, supplies, equipment, and other expenses that you need to execute a project. In this topic, you will add resources to a project and assign those resources to your project tasks.

• Save a Project

You have created a basic project plan.Well done! Now, you will need to save a Project file so that you can revise and share it later.Here you will learn of the option of saving your Project file in the different places.

In this lesson, you will learn about modifying calendars in Microsoft Project to reflect the realities of your particular project. This included changing the start or end date of the project, selecting a base calendar for the project, and adding exceptions to the project calendar.You will schedule new projects from a start date so that you have the maximum amount of scheduling flexibility and you will understand which base calendar to select for your next project, and why.

• Manage Project Time Frames

Whenever you create a new, blank project file in Microsoft Project, the program assumes that your project starts on the same day that the file is created. In reality, your project start date may be in the past or future. This topic will help you understand how to change and manage your project time frames.

• Change Working Time

You know that the working time is whenever labor is being performed on a project, on a task, or by a resource. Nonworking time is when labour is not being performed. Why to change them? The reason why you want to change them is that the program assumes that your project tasks will be performed during a standard 40-hour work week. Your project tasks may be performed during a longer or shorter work week. You may also want to take into account holidays schedules.

So far you have learned how to add tasks to a project and link them together. This lesson will add to your knowledge of tasks so that you can manage project work more effectively.
You will learn how to manage project tasks in a number of ways using the Task Information dialog box and how to add summary tasks and milestones to your project.

• Manage Project Tasks

You will manage your project tasks by exploring how you can add useful details by using the Task Information dialog box.
As you will recall from earlier in this course, the Task Information dialog box opens when you select a task name in the Gantt Chart view. This dialog box contains all the information about the task, grouped into tabs.

• Add Summary Tasks and Milestones

It is important that you know how to create summary tasks and task milestones.You will need this for more complex projects when you want to group small, related tasks together into larger work packages – a summary task. At the end of this topic you will be able to add summary tasks which can also be made into subtasks of a higher summary task.

You have successfully added resources to a project and assigned them to tasks. This lesson will expand your knowledge of resources and how you can manage project resources in a number of ways using the Resources Information dialog box by adding a resource’s email address, changing a resource’s type from Work to Material or Cost, changing a resource’s availability or adding cost rates to a resource in order to manage project work more effectively.

• Manage Project Resources

You will explore how you can add useful details to project resources using the Resource Information dialog box.
The Resource Information dialog box opens when you by double-click the row of resources in the Resource Sheet view. This dialog box contains all the information about the resource, grouped into four tabs.

• Allocate and Level Work Resources

After you enter resources for your project and assign them to your project, it’s a good idea to make sure you aren’t planning to give your resources more project work to do than they have time available. When you find that some resources have too much project work assigned to them, you will want to reassign the extra work to other resources that aren’t being used to capacity.The Team Planner view is the easiest way to see how your resources are allocated across the project.

Once you prepare your project plan, you will need to deliver it to your project stakeholders for approval and to your project team members for implementation. In this lesson, you will use several methods for delivering project plans on paper and in several
electronic formats.

• Print Project Views

Although we live in an increasingly digital world, there are still situations when you need to prepare and distribute a paper document. In this topic, you will generate a project plan on paper.
You can print any view on the View Bar. The Gantt Chart view is the one most often shared in paper format, but you may find it useful to print other project views—especially the Calendar and Network Diagram views.
Before you print a view, you may want to change the amount of detail that will be displayed. You can chose to hide subtasks,hide columns,resize the panes of a view or to change the zoom level.

• Share Projects

In today’s global economy, it is common for project team members to be at more than one geographic location. You might have more than one “virtual team” relying on electronic communication channels to coordinate their work. In this topic, you will use the methods for sharing your project plan electronically.

• Export Projects

It is probable that you will manage project teams that don’t have access to Microsoft SharePoint. Also, as the project manager, you may be the only team member with a license for Microsoft Project. In this topic, you will use other options for sharing Project files electronically.

Congratulations! You have completed the Microsoft Project Introduction course. You successfully created, updated, and shared a project plan.