It is possible that you have heard of Microsoft Project, but have never used it. It isn’t included in the standard editions of Microsoft Office, which is why it is relatively unknown. It is, however, a powerful piece of software that can streamline Project Management. In this article, we set out its capabilities.
1 – Planning, Tasks and Resources
Project managers can use it to develop plans, assign resources to tasks, track progress, manage budgets and analyse workloads. Perhaps its most useful feature is it’s ability to see a project in a number of different views. A View in Microsoft Project is a representation of data in the form of table and graph.
2 – Many Different Views
Essentially, the project can be viewed from different perspectives and representations, all from one platform. These views can also be customized providing particular solutions for specific projects. In the latest versions there is even a Board view, that looks like a traditional Kanban board.
3 – The Gantt Chart
The default view is the Gantt Chart view. This has two sections; a Table on left hand side and Graph on right hand side. Traditionally a Gantt Chart contains Tasks names, tasks duration, start and finish dates and a bar chart drawn to show the tasks duration over time.
There is also a Network Diagram view, a Team Planner view, a resource usage chart view, a calendar view, and many, many more.
4 – Create Tasks and Timelines
Microsoft Project helps planning and scheduling, by allowing the definition of project tasks and setting the prioritisation of these. A Timeline view can be added to identify important tasks and Milestones in the project.
5 – Customised Reports
Project has extensive reporting facilities, allowing complex and detailed reports to be generated very easily. As well as built in reports, it provides the facility to create custom reports that meet your own organisation’s requirements. Reports include burn down reports; an overview of the entire project on one page; the conditions of available resources and their utilisation; a cost overview; a list of pending tasks; and a list of targets achieved and upcoming goals.
6 – Easy Resource Management
There are a number of tools in project that allow effective resource management, allowing the tracking and monitoring of available resources. Project also allows the assignment of costs to individual resources, and check if certain resources are being overused or underused. Tasks can be correctly assigned to match resource availability. A Resource Pool can even be created that can be accessed by multiple projects.
7 – Subprojects and Master Projects
Smaller projects, being looked after by different teams can be merged together into a Master Project, but still exist as separate entities, allowing a lot of flexibility on how the projects are managed, whilst still showing how smaller projects fit into a larger overall Project.
Project is a very flexible tool that is extremely useful for project management and it is also quite simple to master. If you are interested to get a better understanding of it, Infero Training offers industry leading hands-on courses in at variety of levels. Check out our Microsoft Project Courses page to find out about our virtual, classroom and on-site training.