#MSProject – Practice makes Perfect #ProjectServer #Office365
During a three day Prince2 Practitioner course with me being a consultant that implements Microsoft Project. I asked the six project managers the following question: “How many of you use Microsoft Project to plan your projects” The responds was as what I expected “I use Excel”, “I only use it to draw up my initial plan and hang it against a wall”. While I do not like Excel as a planning tool, I can understand a lot of Project Managers use it.
My follow-up question is then do you update your plan on a weekly basis. The answer I usual get then is no. I have it in my head and update the plan when I need to (which usual takes a lot of time).
This is an example on what I see on day to day basis. There are still a lot of Project Managers that use Microsoft Project to make a plan and then never use it again to update it.
My question would be why? Microsoft Project has great functions that a Project Manager can use to make it a really easy job to update a project plan. I think the answer lies in that a lot of Project Managers do not take the time to explore Microsoft Project and it’s functions and features.
The next question would be is it really needed? I suppose not and depends on your style as a Project Manager, but what I do know is, that it can really save you a lot of time and effort. And that as a Project Manager is what we all want. We have a lot of things to do on a daily basis anyway.
To help any Project Manager that is interested in Microsoft Project and use it or wants to start using it for their projects, I am going to start a series called “Practice makes Perfect” that will try to help to get the most out of Microsoft Project. For the series I will use Microsoft Project Professional 2010 or the new Project Professional 2013 (currently part of the Microsoft Office preview).
This series will include for example:
- Baseline usage
- Views (Think of easy views a project manager can use to update their plan)
- Reports
I hope that this series will help Project Managers to get more out of Microsoft Project and really help them on a day to day basis.
   I am Robin Kruithof. I am working at CXS in the Netherlands as a Microsoft Project Consultant. My passion lies in Project Management and everything in the Project Management domain.
This article has been cross posted from speakingsilent.wordpress.com/ |
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