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

Chapter 16: Critical Path Monitoring and Advanced Techniques

A project in execution is often under several forms of external and internal pressure, which can derail it. These include scope creep, inflationary costs, competing resource commitments, risks, issues, and quality concerns. These factors can ultimately cause schedule slippage, budget overrun, resource overallocation, and quality issues. The project manager should use different monitoring and control techniques to minimize the impact of these factors on the schedule.

Critical Path Method (CPM) is the scheduling methodology of choice used in Project. A robust understanding of the CPM empowers the project manager to absorb and dampen the impact of external and internal pressures, as we will investigate in this chapter. Furthermore, we will also revisit the topic of overallocation, looking at some advanced features provided by Project with the aid of practical exercises.

In this chapter, we are going to cover the following...