Book Image

Learning Microsoft Project 2019

By : Srikanth Shirodkar
Book Image

Learning Microsoft Project 2019

By: Srikanth Shirodkar

Overview of this book

Microsoft Project is one of the most popular project management tools for enterprises of all sizes thanks to its wide variety of features such as project scheduling, project budgeting, built-in templates, and reporting tools. Learning Microsoft Project 2019 will get you started with the basics and gradually guide you through the complete project life cycle. Starting with an overview of Microsoft Project 2019 and a brief introduction to project management concepts, this book will take you through the different phases of project management – initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure. You will then learn how to identify and handle problems related to scheduling, costing, resourcing, and work allocation. Understand how to use dynamic reports to create powerful, automated reports and dashboards at the click of a button. This Microsoft Project book highlights the pitfalls of overallocation and demonstrates how to avoid and resolve these issues using a wide spectrum of tools, techniques, and best practices. Finally, you will focus on executing Agile projects efficiently and get to grips with using Kanban and Scrum features. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with Microsoft Project and have the skills you need to use it effectively in every stage of project management.
Table of Contents (32 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Iron Triangle – a Quick Primer for Project Management
3
Section 2: Project Initiation with Microsoft Project
8
Section 3: Project Planning Like a Pro!
13
Section 4: Project Execution – the Real Deal
15
Chapter 11: Overallocation – the Bane of Project Managers
18
Section 5: Monitoring and Control with Microsoft Project
23
Section 6: Project Closure with Microsoft Project
Appendix A: Using This Book as a Textbook
Appendix C: Keyboard Shortcuts
Appendix D: Glossary

Diagnostic formatting

Complex schedules will start to look like a bowl of spaghetti when they're suboptimal, with tasks and links in a jumbled amalgamation. In such situations, you will want to study different task paths within your schedule for a network analysis. Project provides a host of diagnostic tools in the same Format tab. We will study the two most critical tools in the following sections.

Task Path

Given any task in the schedule, the Task Path feature allows you to automatically identify the ecosystem of task relationships that surround the task. There are four options to choose from, but we will only look at Driving Predecessors here. Understanding the driving predecessors for a task is important, as any delays on this path can cause delays on the task being analyzed.

Take a look at the following screenshot, where a milestone named Project Charter Complete is being analyzed so that the chain of predecessors that drive it can be understood:

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