Microsoft Project Training Introduction

Microsoft Project Course Outline

• Introduction to Microsoft Project

  • Overview of project management concepts that apply to Microsoft Project
  • Introducing the Microsoft Project interface
  • Customizing the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar

• Creating a New Project Plan

  Building a project plan

  • Producing a work breakdown structure (WBS)
  • Entering tasks, summary tasks and milestones
  • Estimating and entering task duration
  • Establishing relationships between tasks
  • Working with different types of dependencies
  • Adjusting the project schedule to target specific dates

  Scheduling essentials

  • Leveraging manual and automatic scheduling
  • Conceptualizing and identifying the critical path
  • Analyzing and managing the schedule

  Optimizing the project plan

  • Implementing lag and lead
  • Applying deadline dates to the project plan
  • Setting, locating and removing task constraints
  • Managing master and subprojects

• Controlling Your Project Plan

  Configuring calendars

  • Creating new and updating existing calendars
  • Analyzing the relationship between project, task and resource calendars
  • Changing default calendar options

  Applying calendars to projects, tasks and resources

  • Assigning calendars appropriately
  • Updating your project plan due to calendar changes

  Sharing project calendars

  • Saving calendar changes to the Global template
  • Sharing and organizing calendars

• Keeping Your Project on Track

  Preparing for tracking

  • Validating the project plan
  • Establishing the baseline

  Tracking task progress

  • Identifying key steps in the tracking process
  • Updating the project plan with tracking data
  • Analyzing variance against the project plan
  • Creating graphical status indicators

  Troubleshooting schedule problems

  • Reviewing project task updates for timeline problems
  • Resolving issues with the project schedule

• Managing Project Resources and Assignments

  Creating and assigning resources

  • Defining work, material and cost resources
  • Assigning resources to tasks
  • Utilizing budget resources
  • Configuring resource pools

  Managing and tracking resource assignments

  • Troubleshooting resource assignments
  • Investigating and resolving resource overallocations
  • Tracking assignment progress
  • Leveraging the Usage views to manage assignments

• Analyzing Project Data and Preparing Reports

  Identifying communication needs

  • Defining stakeholder groups
  • Identifying project communication requirements

  Creating reports

  • Examining basic and dynamic report types
  • Designing dashboard indicator reports
  • Building custom tables, filters and reports
  • Creating Visual Report templates
  • Automating reporting tasks via macros

  Interacting with other applications

  • Sharing data using the Timeline view
  • Overview of collaboration features
  • Employing import and export maps