by Nancy Muir Microsoft ® Office Project 2007 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page i Microsoft ® Project 2007 For Dummies ® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REP- RESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CRE- ATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CON- TAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FUR- THER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2006934842 ISBN-10: 0-470-03651-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-470-03651-8 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1B/RS/RS/QW/IN 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page ii About the Author Nancy Muir has written dozens of books on topics ranging from desktop applications, project management, and distance learning, to an award- winning book on character education for middle-schoolers. Prior to her freelance writing career, Nancy taught workshops in project management to Fortune 500 companies and was a manager in both the computer and publishing industries. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband Earl, with whom she has collaborated on three books, including Electronics Projects For Dummies. 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page iii Dedication To Earl for putting up with my hectic book schedule in our first year of mar- riage. You’re the best! That long-promised cutting back on work time is almost here, my love. Author’s Acknowledgments First, many thanks to my friend Elaine Marmel, author of the Microsoft Project Bible from Wiley. Her advice and insight into the workings of Project always help me see the forest for the trees. Did the chocolate arrive okay, Elaine? Second I thank the folks at Wiley, including Kyle Looper, my able acquisitions editor, and Blair Pottenger, the book’s project editor who was incredibly supportive and patient and helped me hold all the pieces together. Thanks also to development editor Linda Morris, copy editors Teresa Artman and Becky Whitney, and technical editor Jennifer Pendleton for keeping the prose accurate and intelligible. 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page v Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Project Editor: Blair J. Pottenger Development Editor: Linda Morris Acquisitions Editor: Kyle Looper Senior Copy Editor: Teresa Artman Copy Editor: Becky Whitney Technical Editor: Jennifer Pendleton Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner Media Development Specialist: Steven Kudirka Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss Media Development Manager: Laura VanWinkle Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Senior Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Composition Services Project Coordinator: Ryan Steffen Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Denny Hager, Stephanie D. Jumper, Barry Offringa, Lynsey Osborn, Alicia South Proofreaders: Jessica Kramer, Techbooks Indexer: Techbooks Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico Special Help Jodi Jensen Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page vi Contents at a Glance Introduction 1 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project 7 Chapter 1: Project Management: What Is It, and Why Should You Care? 9 Chapter 2: The Best-Laid Plans 35 Chapter 3: Mark It on Your Calendar 51 Chapter 4: A Tisket, a Task Kit 69 Chapter 5: Getting Your Outline in Line 93 Chapter 6: Timing Is Everything 113 Part II: People Who Need People 127 Chapter 7: Using Your Natural Resources 129 Chapter 8: What’s All This Gonna Cost? 147 Chapter 9: Assigning Resources to Get Things Done 161 Part III: Well, It Looks Good on Paper 177 Chapter 10: Fine-Tuning Your Plan 179 Chapter 11: Making Your Project Look Good 203 Part IV: Avoiding Disaster: Staying On Track 215 Chapter 12: It All Begins with a Baseline 217 Chapter 13: On the Right Track 227 Chapter 14: A Project with a View: Observing Progress 249 Chapter 15: You’re Behind: Now What? 263 Chapter 16: Spreading the News: Reporting 279 Chapter 17: Getting Better All the Time 303 Part V: Working with Enterprise Projects 317 Chapter 18: Project Web Access for the Project Manager 319 Chapter 19: Project Web Access for the End User 335 Part VI: The Part of Tens 345 Chapter 20: Ten Golden Rules of Project Management 347 Chapter 21: Ten Project Management Software Products to Explore 357 02_036516 fftoc.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page vii Part VII: Appendixes 363 Appendix A: On the CD 365 Appendix B: Glossary 371 Index 379 02_036516 fftoc.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page viii Table of Contents Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 How This Book Is Organized 2 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project 2 Part II: People Who Need People 3 Part III: Well, It Looks Good on Paper 3 Part IV: Avoiding Disaster: Staying on Track 3 Part V: Working with Enterprise Projects 3 Part VI: The Part of Tens 4 Part VII: Appendixes 4 What You’re Not to Read 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 5 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project 7 Chapter 1: Project Management: What Is It, and Why Should You Care? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 The ABCs of Project Management 10 The three Ts: Tasks, timing, and dependencies (well, two Ts and a D) 10 Lining up your resources 14 Spreading the news 16 Planning to keep things on track 17 The Role of the Project Manager 18 What exactly does a project manager do? 18 Understanding the dreaded triple constraint 19 Applying tried-and-true methodologies 19 From To-Do List to Hard Drive 22 Getting up to speed with Project 22 Collaborating with your project team online 23 Getting Started 23 Getting going with help from Project Guide 24 Starting from scratch 25 Starting with templates 30 Saving a Project for Posterity 32 Getting Help from Project 32 02_036516 fftoc.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page ix Chapter 2: The Best-Laid Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Navigating Project 35 Changing views 35 Scrolling around 37 Getting to a specific spot in your plan 39 A Project with a View 39 Home base: Gantt Chart view 40 Going with the flow: Network Diagram view 41 Calling up Calendar view 42 Customizing Views 43 Working with view panes 44 Modifying the contents of the Network Diagram boxes 48 Chapter 3: Mark It on Your Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Mastering Base, Project, Resource, and Task Calendars 52 How calendars work 52 How one calendar relates to another 54 Calendar Options and Working Times 54 Setting calendar options 55 Setting exceptions to working times 57 Setting the Project calendar 58 Using Project Guide to Make Calendar Settings 60 Modifying Task Calendars 62 Making Resource Calendar Settings 63 Which resources get calendars? 63 Making the change to a resource’s calendar 63 Do It Yourself: Creating a Custom Calendar Template 65 Sharing Copies of Calendars 67 Chapter 4: A Tisket, a Task Kit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Tackling Your First Task 69 Identifying what makes up a task 70 Creating a task 71 You’re in It for the Duration 78 Tasks come in all flavors: Identifying task type 78 Setting task duration 80 Setting tasks with no duration: Milestones 81 Showing up again and again: Recurring tasks 81 Starting and Pausing Tasks 83 Entering the task start date 84 Taking a break: Splitting tasks 84 It’s Such an Effort: Effort-Driven Tasks 85 Constraints You Can Live With 86 Understanding how constraints work 86 Establishing constraints 87 Setting a deadline 88 Microsoft Project 2007 For Dummies x 02_036516 fftoc.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page x Making a Task Note 88 Saving Your Project — and Your Tasks 89 Task Information in Action: Planning Your Next Space Launch 91 Chapter 5: Getting Your Outline in Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Summary Tasks and Subtasks 93 Project phases 94 How many levels can you go? 95 The One-and-Only Project Summary Task 95 Structuring the Project’s Outline 97 Everything but the kitchen sink: What to include 98 Building the outline 100 Moving Tasks All around Your Outline 101 The outdent-and-indent shuffle 101 Moving tasks up and down 102 Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Collapsing and Expanding Tasks 104 Cracking the WBS Code 107 Displaying a WBS code 108 Customizing the code 109 Chapter 6: Timing Is Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 How Tasks Become Codependent 114 Dependent tasks: Which comes first? 114 Dependency types 115 Allowing for Murphy’s Law: Lag and lead time 118 Making the Dependency Connection 118 Adding the missing (dependency) link 119 Extending your reach with external dependencies 121 Understanding that things change: Deleting dependencies 122 Just Look at All These Task Dependencies! 124 Part II: People Who Need People 127 Chapter 7: Using Your Natural Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 Resources: People, Places, and Things 130 Becoming Resource-full 130 Understanding resources 131 Resource types: Work, material, and cost 133 How resources affect task timing 134 Estimating resource requirements 135 Committed versus proposed resources 135 The Birth of a Resource 136 Creating one at a time 136 Identifying resources before you know their names 137 Resources that hang out in groups 138 xi Table of Contents 02_036516 fftoc.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page xi [...]... the project management school of hard knocks and jump into the world of Microsoft Office Project 2007 When you do, you’ll be rewarded with a wealth of tools and information that help you to manage your projects much more efficiently Here’s where you step out of the world of cave-dweller project management and into the brave, new world of Microsoft Office Project 2007 5 6 Microsoft Project 2007 For Dummies. .. how to use them In Microsoft Office Project 2007 For Dummies, my goal is to help you explore all that Project offers, providing information on relevant project management concepts while also offering specific procedures to build and track your Project plans But more importantly, I offer advice on how to make all these features and procedures mesh with what you already know as a project manager to make... to help you begin to use Microsoft Office Project 2007 to plan, build, and track progress on projects, keeping in mind tried-and-true project management practices and principles I divided the book into logical parts that follow the process of building and tracking a typical project plan Part I: Setting the Stage for Project Part I explains what Project 2007 can do for you as well as what types of input... .310 Customizing Project Guide 314 Part V: Working with Enterprise Projects 317 Chapter 18: Project Web Access for the Project Manager 319 Figuring Out Whether Project Web Access Is for You .320 Getting a Handle on What You Can Do with Project Web Access 322 Planning to Use Project Server and Project Web Access 323 Get a team together 323 Gather information ... when you’re using Project for the first time (or the fifth time, for that matter) The second offers a look at some add-on products and complementary software products that bring even more functionality to Microsoft Office Project Part VII: Appendixes This book is accompanied by a handy CD filled with project management goodies, including project management add-on software and Microsoft Project templates... This part shows you the basics of what Project Server can do, and how to use Project Web Access from both the manager and users’ perspective 3 4 Microsoft Project 2007 For Dummies Part VI: The Part of Tens Ten seems to be a handy number of items for humans to put into lists, so this part gives you two such lists: Ten Golden Rules of Project Management and Ten Project Management Software Products to... traditional project management makes the move to software ᮣ Understanding what elements of a project are managed in Project ᮣ Understanding the project manager’s role ᮣ Exploring the role of the Internet in project management ᮣ Getting started using Project Guide ᮣ Using a template to start a new project ᮣ Saving a project file ᮣ Finding help in Project W elcome to the world of computerized project management... keyboard, software menus, 2 Microsoft Project 2007 For Dummies and toolbars I assume you know how to use most common Windows functions (such as the Clipboard) as well as many basic software functions (such as selecting text and dragging and dropping things with your mouse) I do not assume that you’ve used Project or any other project management software before If you’re new to Project, you’ll find what... from your projects to make better planning choices going forward Part V: Working with Enterprise Projects With all that Project Professional has to offer the enterprise via its Project Server and Project Web Access functionalities and SharePoint online services, you can share documents online with your project team, have your human resources report their work time, and even integrate Project information... 10 Part I: Setting the Stage for Project The ABCs of 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: the Acme Drilling Project or the Network Expansion IT Project, for example Others are less obvious, such as that speech thing you have to do on Saturday for your professional association . by Nancy Muir Microsoft ® Office Project 2007 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_036516 ffirs.qxp 11/20/06 1:37 PM Page i Microsoft ® Project 2007 For Dummies ® Published by Wiley Publishing,. Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies. com, and related trade dress. Enterprise Projects 317 Chapter 18: Project Web Access for the Project Manager 319 Chapter 19: Project Web Access for the End User 335 Part VI: The Part of Tens 345 Chapter 20: Ten Golden Rules of Project