My Basic presentation to a small team starting with MS Project.

1. Microsot Project
Basics
MADHUSUDAN.G.S

2. CONTENTS
1. Project Definition
2. PERT Introduction
3. MS Project
4. Views in MS Project
5. Steps to be followed
6. Best Practices
7. Additional Resources

3. Project Definition
A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in
time, and therefore defined scope and resources. (PMI)
Deifining the specific beginning and end of the project
using interrelated activities for Monitoring and control of
the project life cycle is Project Scheduling

4. PERT (Program Evaluation and
Review Technique)
A Mathematical model of work sequencing originally developed in the
late 1950's for the U.S. Navy's Polaris project having thousands of
contractors.
Activity = Task ; Event = Milestone

5. Microsoft Project
MS Project is a software developed by Microsoft corporation for Project
Managers which supports mainly in
1. Project Schedule Management
2. Cost Management
3. Resource Management

6. Stepwise implantation of MS
Project schedule
1. Define Project Start date, Working Days, Holidays, etc.,
2. Identify activities and Milestones (WBS)
3. Determine activity sequence
4. Estimate task / activity durations
5. Check Critical Path (There should only be ONE critical path)
6. Fine tune
7. After approval, Baseline the Schedule

7. Schedule monitoring and
control
 Update the baselined schedule periodically to assess the slippages,
critical activities, and extended date of project.
 Do not change the baseline columns
 Observe the change in critical path
 Forecast upcoming tasks and delays from the updates.

8. Best Practices
 Only first task in the schedule should not have predecessor
 Summary tasks should not have predecessor or successor
 Divide the tasks into stages such as EPC
 Establish milestones such as payment milestones, contractual
obligations, handovers, Stage gates, etc.,
 Never alter the baseline. If required create multiple baseline
 Tasks should be divided into element level but should not be
confusing.
 Recommended to put major slack at end of the schedule as
contingency.
Pro tip: Look out for ? Is duration column of the main project summary
task to avoid uncertainties in the schedule

9. Additional resources
www.pmi.org
www.projectmanager.com
www.projectconnections.com
http://projectmanagementdegree.org/effective-manager/
Recommended Book for understanding project philosophy and
productivity
Getting Things Done By David Allen