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

Revisiting the UI

So far, I have been careful to introduce only those minimum UI features that are needed for us to proceed with our simple exercise projects. Now, let's take a quick look at the other useful features on your Project main screen.

Timeline view

Introduced in the 2010 version of Project, this is a such a loved feature that it occupies prime real estate on the main screen, albeit in a split window, sharing the honor with the Gantt chart view:

Figure 3.14 – Microsoft Project – the Timeline view

Task chronology is the key focus of this view, as the name suggests. The Timeline view starts out blank, and you can choose which tasks get added to it. In the preceding screenshot, you can observe that I have added a couple of tasks to the timeline. You can right-click on any task in the table, and in the contextual menu, select Add to Timeline. This action will add your task to the timeline at the right position on the timeline...