Table of Contents
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part I Getting Started With Project 2016 5
Chapter 1 Project Management, Project 2016, and You 7
Introducing Project Management 7
Defining project manager 8
Identifying what a project manager does 9
Introducing Project 2016 10
Getting to Know You 11
Navigating file tabs and the Ribbon 14
Displaying more tools 17
Tell Me What You Want to Do 18
Chapter 2 Starting the Project 19
Creating the Project Charter 20
Introducing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 21
Organizing the Work 22
Starting the Project 24
Entering project information 24
Weighing manual scheduling versus automatic scheduling 26
Entering the WBS 28
Entering tasks 30
Importing tasks from Outlook 32
Promoting and demoting: The outdent-and-indent shuffle 35
Saving the Project 36
Chapter 3 Becoming a Task Master 39
Creating Summary Tasks and Subtasks 39
How many levels can you go? 41
The project summary task 41
Moving Tasks Up, Down, and All Around 43
Moving tasks with the drag-and-drop method 44
Moving tasks with the cut-and-paste (or copy-and-paste) method 44
Now You See It, Now You Don't: Collapsing and Expanding the Task Outline 45
Showing Up Again and Again: Recurring Tasks 48
Setting Milestones 49
Deleting Tasks and Using Inactive Tasks 50
Making a Task Note 51
Chapter 4 The Codependent Nature of Tasks 53
How Tasks Become Dependent 54
Dependent tasks: Which comes first? 54
Dependency types 55
Allowing for Murphy's Law: Lag and lead time 57
Setting the Dependency Connection 58
Adding the dependency link 58
Extending your reach with external dependencies 61
Words to the wise 61
Understanding that things change: Deleting dependencies 62
Chapter 5 Estimating Task Time 65
You're in It for the Duration 66
Tasks come in all flavors: Identifying task types 66
Effort-driven tasks: 1 + 1 = 1/2 67
Estimating Effort and Duration 70
Estimating techniques 70
Setting the task duration 72
Controlling Timing with Constraints 73
Understanding how constraints work 73
Establishing constraints 74
Setting a deadline 75
Starting and Pausing Tasks 76
Entering the task's start date 77
Taking a break: Splitting tasks 78
Chapter 6 Check Out This View! 81
A Project with a View 81
Navigating tabs and views 82
Scrolling around 84
Reaching a specific spot in your plan 85
More Detail about Views 86
Home base: Gantt Chart view 86
Resourceful views: Resource Sheet and Team Planner 88
Getting your timing down with the Timeline 88
Going with the flow: Network Diagram view 89
Calling up Calendar view 90
Customizing Views 91
Working with view panes 92
Modifying Network Diagram view 96
Resetting the view 100
Part II Managing Resources 101
Chapter 7 Creating Resources 103
Resources: People, Places, and Things 103
Becoming Resource-Full 104
Understanding resources 104
Resource types: Work, material, and cost 105
How resources affect task timing 105
Estimating resource requirements 106
The Birth of a Resource 107
Creating one resource at a time 108
Identifying resources before you know their names 109
Many hands make light work 110
Managing Resource Availability 111
Estimating and setting availability 111
When a resource comes and goes 112
Sharing Resources 114
Skimming from resource pools 114
Importing resources from Outlook 116
Chapter 8 Working with Calendars 119
Mastering Base, Project, Resource, and Task Calendars 119
How calendars work 120
How one calendar relates to another 121
Scheduling with Calendar Options and Working Times 122
Setting calendar options 122
Setting exceptions to working times 124
Working with Task Calendars and Resource Calendars 126
Setting resource calendars 126
Making the change to a resource's calendar 127
Creating a Custom Calendar Template 129
Sharing Copies of Calendars 130
Chapter 9 Assigning Resources 133
Finding the Right Resource 133
Needed: One good resource willing to work 134
Custom fields: It's a skill 135
Making a Useful Assignation 136
Determining material and cost-resource units 137
Making assignments 137
Shaping the contour that's right for you 140
Benefitting from a Helpful Planner 142
Chapter 10 Determining a Project's Cost 145
How Do Costs Accrue? 146
Adding up the costs 146
When will this hit the bottom line? 147
Specifying Cost Information in the Project 148
You can't avoid fixed costs 148
Entering hourly, overtime, and cost-per-use rates 149
Assigning material resources 151
How Your Settings Affect Your Costs 152
Part III Before You Baseline 155
Chapter 11 Fine-Tuning Your Plan 157
Everything Filters to the Bottom Line 157
Setting predesigned filters 158
Putting AutoFilter to work 159
Creating do-it-yourself filters 161
Gathering Information in Groups 163
Applying predefined groups 163
Devising your own groups 164
Figuring Out What's Driving the Project 166
Inspecting tasks 166
Handling task warnings and suggestions 167
Chapter 12 Negotiating Project Constraints 171
It's about Time 171
Applying contingency reserve 172
Completing a task in less time 174
Getting What You Want for Less 176
The Resource Recourse 176
Checking resource availability 177
Deleting or modifying a resource assignment 178
Beating overallocations with quick-and-dirty rescheduling 179
Finding help 179
Leveling resources 180
Rescheduling the Project 183
Chapter 13 Making the Project Look Good 185
Looking Good! 185
Formatting the Gantt Chart 186
Formatting taskbars 186
Zeroing in on critical issues 189
Restyling the Gantt chart 190
Formatting Task Boxes 191
Adjusting the Layout 192
Modifying Gridlines 195
Recognizing When a Picture Can Say It All 197
Creating a Custom Text Field 198
Chapter 14 It All Begins with a Baseline 201
All about Baselines 201
Saving a baseline 202
Saving more than one baseline 203
Clearing and resetting a baseline 205
In the Interim 206
Saving an interim plan 207
Clearing and resetting an interim plan 208
Part IV Staying on Track 211
Chapter 15 On the Right Track 213
Developing a Communications Management Plan 213
Gathering data 214
Applying a tracking method 215
Using the tracking tools 216
For everything, there's a view 217
Tracking Work for the Record 218
Specifying the status date 219
Remaining on track 220
Determining the percent complete 220
Recording start and finish information 222
Knowing what to do when John works three hours and Mary works ten 222
Uh-oh - we're in overtime 224
Specifying remaining durations for auto-scheduled tasks 225
Entering fixed-cost updates 227
Moving a Task 228
Update Project: Sweeping Changes 229
Tracking Materials 231
Tracking More Than One: Consolidated Projects 232
Consolidating projects 232
Updating consolidated projects 234
Changing linking settings 235
Chapter 16 Project Views: Observing Progress 237
Seeing Where Tasks Stand 238
Baseline versus actual progress 238
Lines of progress 239
Delving into the Detail 242
Tracking Progress Using Earned Value Management 244
Calculating Behind the Scenes 246
Earned-value options 247
An abundance of critical paths 248
Chapter 17 You're Behind - Now What? 251
Using Project with Risk and Issue Logs 251
Printing interim plans and baselines 252
Printing task notes 253
What-If Scenarios 254
Sorting tasks 255
Filtering 256
Examining the critical path 257
Using resource leveling (again) 259
Determining which factors are driving the timing of a task 259
How Adding People or Time Affects the Project 260
Hurrying up and making modifications 260
Throwing people at the problem 261
Shirting dependencies and task timing 262
When All Else Fails 264
Taking the time you need 264
Finding ways to cut corners 265
Chapter 18 Spreading the New: Reporting 267
Generating Standard Reports 268
What's available 268
Overviewing the dashboard reports 269
Creating New Reports 270
Gaining a new perspective on data with visual reports 271
Creating a visual report 272
Fine-Tuning a Report 273
Dragging, dropping, and sizing 273
Looking good! 274
Spiffing Things Up 276
Call the Printer! 278
Working with Page Setup 279
Getting a preview 283
Printing, at last! 284
Working on the Timeline 285
Adding tasks to the Timeline 285
Customizing the Timeline 287
Copying the Timeline 288
Enhanced Copy and Paste 288
Chapter 19 Getting Better All the Time 289
Reviewing the Project 289
Learning from your mistakes 290
Debriefing the team 291
Comparing Versions of a Project 292
Building on Success 294
Creating a template 294
Mastering the Organizer 296
Part V The Part of Tens 299
Chapter 20 Ten Golden Rules of Project Management 301
Roll with It 301
Put Your Ducks in a Row 302
Expect the Unexpected 303
Don't Put Off until Tomorrow 303
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate 304
Document It 305
Keep the Team in the Loop 305
Measure Success 306
Maintain a Flexible Strategy 306
Learn from Your Mistakes 307
Chapter 21 Ten Cool Shortcuts in Project 2016 309
Task Information 309
Resource Information 310
Frequently Used Functions 310
Subtasks 311
Indenting and Outdenting 312
Fill Down 312
Navigation 312
Hours to Years 312
Timeline Shortcuts 313
Quick Find 313
Appendix: Glossary 315
Index 325