Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies

Cynthia Snyder Dionisio

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119565147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Applicazioni desktop

Keep projects on track

Microsoft Project 2019 is a powerhouse project management, portfolio management, and resource management tool. Whether you're a full-time project manager or manage projects as part of a larger set of duties, Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies will get you thinking and operating at the level of a project management guru.

Written by a noted project management pro, this book covers the ins and outs of Microsoft Project. Throughout the book, you'll find project management best practices and tips for keeping any project on schedule and under budget.

• Reference the full set of Microsoft Project 2019 features
• Learn to think like a project management professional
• Get into the nuts and bolts of Project for better productivity
• Create a task schedule that keeps a project moving
• Identify the golden rules that keep projects on track

With Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies, you'll soon get a grip on all the powerful features of this popular project management software. No matter your level of training or experience, this book will show you how improve your project management with Microsoft Project 2019.

Part 1

Getting Started with Project 2019

IN THIS PART …

Get familiar with the Ribbons and its tabs in Project 2019.

See how to open a new project, enter tasks, and organize a project.

Become skilled in working with summary tasks, milestones, and notes.

Identify and arrange task dependencies to create a network diagram.

Develop duration estimates for tasks.

Customize Project views to meet your needs.

Chapter 1

Project Management, Project 2019, and You

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the elements of a project

Laying out the project manager’s role

Benefitting from Project 2019

Exploring the software interface

Finding help in Project

Welcome to the world of computerized project management with Microsoft Project. If you’ve never used project management software, you’re entering a brave new world.

Everything you used to do with handwritten to-do lists, sticky notes, word processors, and spreadsheets magically comes together in Project. However, this transition doesn’t come in a moment, and you need a basic understanding of what project management software can do to get you up to speed. If you’ve used previous versions of Project, the overview in this chapter can refresh your memory and ease you into a few of the new Project 2019 features.

Even if you’re a seasoned project manager, this chapter provides the foundation for how to work with Project.

Introducing Project Management

You probably handle projects day in and day out. Some are obvious, because your boss named them so that any fool would know that they’re projects: Acme Drilling Project or Network Expansion IT Project, for example. Others are less obvious, such as that presentation you need to put together for your director or that how-to guide on planting a vegetable garden in your backyard.

In this book, a project is defined as a unique venture undertaken to produce distinct deliverables, products, or outcomes. In the context of a project, a deliverable is an individual component or item that meets the requirements of the project, such as a design document or a prototype. Projects have multiple variables; some are straightforward to define, and others aren’t.

Using the information about variables in Table 1-1, you can say that project management is the practice of organizing, managing, and controlling project variables to meet the project outcomes and mission.

TABLE 1-1 Project Variables

Variable	Description	Defined
Scope	The work needed to produce the deliverables, products, or outcomes for the project.
Time	The duration required to complete the project work.
Cost	The funds required to complete the project.
Resources	The people, equipment, material, supplies, and facilities needed to accomplish the project.
Undefined
Change	The type, timing, number, and degree of modifications from a project baseline; can affect the project’s scope, time, cost, or resources.
Risk	Uncertainty (associated with the scope, time, cost, resources, stakeholders, or environment) that can threaten the completion of any aspect of the project. Fortunately, risks can also present opportunities to accelerate the schedule or come in under budget.
Stakeholder	A person who can affect, or who is affected by, the project, either positively or negatively.
Environment	The location, culture, or organization in which the project occurs.

Defining project manager

Although understanding the role (let alone the usefulness) of certain managers isn’t always easy, you can easily spot the value of a project manager: This person creates the master plan for a project and ensures that it is implemented successfully. Along the way, the project manager uses technical, business, and leadership skills to manage the completion of tasks and keep the schedule on track.

A truly professional project manager may have a degree in project management or a professional certification. For example, if you see the initials PMP beside a name, that person has been certified as a project management professional by the Project Management Institute, the leading global organization establishing project management standards and credentials.

Identifying what a project manager does

A project manager isn’t always the highest authority in a project. Often, that role belongs to whoever manages the project manager — including, possibly, members of senior management. Rather, the project manager is the person who ensures that aspects of the project are integrated and assumes hands-on responsibility for successes as well as failures.

In project management parlance, the person who champions (and funds) a project is the project sponsor. Although the project manager may work for the project sponsor, the project often also has a customer — outside the project manager’s own company or within it — for whom the end product is produced.

The project manager manages these essential pieces of a project:

• Scope: Define and organize all work that needs to be done in order to meet the project mission and create deliverables.
• Schedule: This element, which you create by working with Project, includes the estimated tasks, duration, and timing involved in reaching the project goal.
• Resources: Assign resources and track their activities on the project as well as resolve resource conflicts and build consensus. This part of the job also involves managing physical resources such as materials and equipment.
• Co...