EPM, Microsoft Project and You

BY: Tanya Foster

Did you know that all sorts of normal everyday activities can be projects?  We always think of these big, multi-million dollar things as projects… but in reality we start and complete projects all the time. Since it’s the holiday season, I thought we would use hanging Christmas lights as an example.  Now, you don’t have to use all five process groups since we’re just doing this for ourselves, but if you want to create a Project Charter and Scope Statement and have yourself sign it… by all means go right ahead.

We’re going to start with the planning phase for our Christmas lights project.  Plan out what type of lights you want; those great big ones? Small ones?  Icicle lights? Where are you going to put them; on the edge of the roof only? The edge of the roof and around the window panes?  The bushes and trees in the front yard?  Will our lights be on a timer?  Are we putting up that giant inflatable snow man that’s folded up in the garage that takes an hour to inflate?  I could go on and on here, but I think you get the point.  You can even create a work breakdown structure.  I highly recommend Microsoft Project for your WBS, but I know that the average Joe might not have that program handy… so you can use whatever you do have handy; Word, Excel, pen and paper work ok too.  I’ve gone ahead and created a WBS for us using Microsoft Project 2007.  Please feel free to copy this and use it at your leisure… I don’t have it copyrighted.

Now we can execute our project plan.  You’ll notice that I only have two resources listed in our project, but of course you can add other resources to your project plan (i.e. your children, spouse, pets, etc.).  Our project is rather small, but some of you may do very elaborate decorations around the holidays, so your plan might be a smidge larger than this one.

We can monitor and control our plan by marking our assignments complete once we’ve finished them… although if you really have that much egg nog, you may not be able to mark much off after the third or fourth glass, just do the best that you can.  Whether your schedule finishes on time and within or under budget… again depends on the egg nog consumption.

As for closing our project, we’ll just release our resources and probably take note of our lessons learned for next year.  As for our lesson learned… don’t return Jim Bob’s ladder after that last glass of egg nog… sleep it off and return it the next day!

This was just one example of how everyday things can be projects too.  So don’t think of these little things as chores or simply a pain in the backside… think of them as project adventures that you as the mighty project manager are going to conquer!  Happy Holidays!

BY:  Collin Quiring

For those that may be getting this blog’s RSS feed but don’t visit our website very often I am sending this out as a quick note.  We have added TWENTY-EIGHT documents to a new White Paper page on our website.  At this time, the majority of them are on Microsoft Project but there are some on Microsoft Portfolio Server as well.  What makes these unique is that some of them are meant to explain in detail the BUSINESS REASON to set something up.  For example, the document on Understanding Project Server Cubes isn’t a technical document, it is an explanation of what the cubes are and what they do.

For those interested, here is a listing of the documents we just added:

Accepting Updates in Project Server 2007
ActiveX Work Around for Project
Activity Creation in Project Server 2007
Administrative Project Check In for Project Server 2007
Checking In a Project with Project Professional 2007
Setting up Document Alerts in Project Server 2007
Enterprise Resources in Project 2007
The Enterprise Global File and the Standard Template in Project
Exam Summaries for Microsoft Project Certification
Linking Projects in Microsoft Project
Schedule Movement – Dates that Represent Actual Information
Resources Assigned to a Task
Installing Outlook Task Synchronization with Microsoft Project Server
Using Outlook with Microsoft Project Server Documents
Project 2007 – Professional and Server – New Additions
Connect Project Professional to Project Server
Proposals and Activities Defined
Proposal Creation in Project Server
The Difference Between Save, Save As and Publish
Task Drivers in Microsoft Project
Templates – Creating and Using
Updating a Task in Project Server 2007
Using Visual Reports in Microsoft Project Professional
Using the Outlook Add-in for Project Server 2007
Project 2010 and Project Server 2010 Highlights
Creating a New Project in Microsoft Portfolio Server 2007 – Part One and Part Two
Understanding Project Server Cubes
Viewing a Project in Microsoft Portfolio Server

Just go to www.PMPSpecialists.com and select the “White Papers” section.

BY: Collin Quiring

This is a quick primer on the difference between a summary task and a milestone task. 

In the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), version four, the term “Summary Activity” is defined as:  “A group of related schedule activities aggregated at some summary level, and displayed/reported as a single activity at that summary level.”  And, a “Milestone” is defined as “A significant point or event in the project.”

A milestone is usually used to indicate when a specific phase or group of tasks is to be completed.  It can be considered a deadline date.  It is possible to have numerous milestones in a schedule.  While a milestone can be assigned a resource that is responsible for its completion, it is more common to use the milestone without resources.  This is because the milestone is often a successor to a number of other tasks that all have to be completed prior to its completion.

In Project Professional, a milestone is what the system automatically creates when a task is given a zero duration.  To add a deadline date to the milestone task there is an option to add that date in the task information.

A summary task is just that – a task that summarizes another set of tasks.  Normally, the summary task is not assigned a resource.  This is because the summary task’s start and completion dates are derived from the earliest subtask’s start date and latest subtask’s finish date.  As each task is completed, the summary task’s overall completion is updated as well.  Normally, a summary task is not linked to other tasks.  Using summary tasks makes reading a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) easier when using a logical grouping.  Creating a WBS usually involves determining the summary tasks and then the subtasks to complete them but it is possible to put all the tasks into a WBS and then determine the summary  tasks later.

In Project Professional, the subtasks are indented and that makes the summary task bold and outdented.  Many levels of summary and subtasks can be created.

Just as a reference point, here are the definitions as defined by Microsoft.  For Microsoft Project, a milestone is defined as: “A milestone is a reference point that marks a major event in a project and is used to monitor the project’s progress. Any task with zero duration is automatically displayed as a milestone. You can also mark any other task of any duration as a milestone.”  And, a summary task is defined as: “When organizing the tasks for a project, you can group the tasks that share characteristics or that will be completed in the same time frame under a summary task….You can use the summary tasks to show the major phases and subphases in the project. Summary tasks summarize the data of their subtasks, which are the tasks that are grouped beneath them.”

By: Collin Quiring

So, the Project Conference just completed and I will have some more substantive blogs about that event in coming days.  But, a new image for Project Server 2010 has been issued along with the information being given out about 2010.  This got me thinking about the older images and how it has changed over time.  I am sure that there are other images out there but these are the ones I could find.  If you have any other ones, please feel free to send them to me and I will gladly add them!  So, here is a bit of fun and a journey down history lane.

Project 2010 Server:

Project – 2007 Images:

Project 2003:

Project 2002:

Project 2000:

Project 1998:

Project 1995:

Project 1994:

By:  Tanya Foster

Last time, we began the process of creating a new Project in Portfolio Server.  Below is a screen shot of the entire Project Info tab that we will have to fill out.  I wanted you to see the entire screen, but we are going to focus on a few fields.  I know this seems like a lot of information, but in order for Portfolio Server to be able to tell us which projects will be best suited for your company’s business objectives, we need this information for it to make good choices.

Let’s start with the first series of information.  First, you’ll notice that there are some fields that have an asterisk beside them.  These fields are required fields and must contain information before the project can be saved.  Keep in mind that these are Portfolio Server’s default fields.  You may want some specific fields of your own and that’s fine.  You will just need to have your Portfolio Server Administrator add the fields for you.

I have added a name called “Employee Suggestion Database”.  This will be the name of our project.  Next, I clicked on the down arrow next to Project Class.  There are two default project classes, Major Project and Non Major Project.  This is going to be a non major project. We won’t get into the workflow piece now, so we’ll just leave ours N/A

Next we’ll look at the Project ID field.  I have manually typed 0001 into this field, but you can set Portfolio Server up so that it will automatically assign a Project ID to each new project.  You will notice that Portfolio Server automatically puts the date in the Creation Date field.  There are several default project types, Regulatory, Business Growth, Infrastructure, Development, Enhancement, and Internal Efficiencies.  I’m going to choose Enhancement for our current project. 

Now it’s time to select our areas impacted.  Click on the black triangle next to the “No items selected” section of the Areas Impacted.  This will open the drop down menu with the default Areas Impacted list.  You can select multiple areas, but in our case, we’ll only click in the box next to HR.

Our next two fields have to do with funding.  There are two types of default funding choices to choose from, Gated and Full.  Click on the drop down arrow to get your types of funding list.  For our example we’re going to choose Full.

And finally, we are going to select whether or not the funding for our project was planned.  Click on the drop down arrow to get the Funding for Project Planned list.  There are three default options to choose from, Fully Funded, Partially Funded, or No Funding.  Since we’re in the land of make believe here, of course our project is fully funded!

We’ve completed the first part to the information needed for our new project.  Tune in next time to learn about the Schedule information we need to fill out next!

By: Tanya Foster

Welcome to another installment in our Portfolio Server Series.  I thought about starting at the very beginning with these Portfolio Server blogs, which would be all of the settings, but then I decided, well… there may be a lot of people out there who just want to know how this thing works.  So… we’re going to start there instead.  We’ll get to the settings, but that will be later in the series. 

Let’s start with the default main page.  Once you log in, Portfolio Server opens up to the Builder module.  Portfolio Server has three modules, the Builder module, the Optimizer module, and the Dashboard module.  You will spend most of your time in the Builder module.  That’s where you will input most of the data.  You will also notice that we have another default in this screenshot.  It’s the My Scorecard view.  This is the main view for the Builder module.  The My Scorecard view is set up by the Portfolio Server Administrator so you have someplace to start from when you first log in.  Now the nice thing about the My Scorecard view is that the rows and columns are completely customizable for each individual user.  You can store several Scorecard views if you want to.  To create your own Scorecard view, simply go to Preferences and choose the appropriate link. 

On the left hand side of the screen, you see a “Name” column with names listed underneath it.  This is the Portfolio Server hierarchy.  This helps to organize the information and also helps to roll up cost and resource data.  There are five types of entities: organizations, programs, projects, applications and custom portfolios.  Project information can be rolled up to the program or to the application level.  Programs and applications can be rolled up to the custom portfolio or organization level.  The Administrator can configure multiple levels of organizations, but keep in mind the more organizations there are, the more complex the configuration will be.  You can click on the plus sign (+) and it will expand the list to show the different levels of the hierarchy. 

The top top level of the hierarchy is the Organization level.  You’ll know it’s the Organization level by this icon:

Here are the other four levels denoted by their respective icons:

Each level can be sorted in ascending or descending order.  To change the sorting order, just click the correct up or down button located in the Name column.  You’ll also notice another icon on this page.  This icon shows whether something is checked in or out.  If the little padlock is open, then the project is checked in, if the little padlock is closed, the project is checked out. The last topic for this blog will be the “tabs” at the top of the screen.  This tab structure shows you roll up information on your Project or Program.  The tabs shown here are default to Portfolio Server.  Your Administrator can customize this based on the needs of your organization. 

Please stay tuned for more upcoming blogs on Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007!

By: Collin Quiring

I’m a detail oriented person and that is part of why I enjoy being a Project Manager – I get to dive into all the gory details and nuances.  But, like many people, I am busy and anything that isn’t a Project that I am involved with, I just want the high-level overview.  I read the headlines on the news websites and if a story interests me, I will drill down on it but may still only read the first few paragraphs.  Today, I was scanning a case study by Apple about Twitter and I read a sentence that jumped out at me:  “Twitter’s meteoric rise to ubiquity is proof positive that the world, in all its complexity, is eager to embrace simplicity.”

While this was about Twitter specifically, it struck me that this really is the point of Project and Portfolio Management.  One of my goals as a Project Manager is to summarize information for users of all levels – I like to use dashboards.  At one glance, an Executive can see a summary of a Project or Portfolio of Projects based upon criteria that is important to them.  Or, a Team Member can see information that is important to them.  And, since it is a dashboard view, they don’t have to get too involved or wade through too much information.  This is simple complexity – a Project can be a very complex set of interdependent tasks, processes, work flows, organizations, people and a myriad of other variables that create a complex labyrinth.  We simplify all those variables with a few colored symbols on a dashboard.

In recent months I have seen articles about the rise of Twitter.  And, I have seen articles by Project Managers talking about how they can use Twitter to send information to interested parties.  I am not there yet – but I see that this is one more way to produce simplicity from the complex.  So far, I let Microsoft Project automatically email my users and Executives that I have created a new dashboard, or that an existing dashboard is updated.  Maybe one day I will provide something more simple – sending a Tweet with a tiny url pointing to the dashboard.  But, then my users will want something even more simple – a dashboard summary in their Tweet; perhaps where a character represents what I now put into the dashboard.

At some point, we are trying to oversimplify the complex though.  What do you think?

Apple Case Study referenced: http://www.apple.com/business/profiles/twitter/

By: Collin Quiring

This is an attempt to help clarify the differences between calendar interactions in Microsoft Project.  While there are very helpful “how to” files on www.microsoft.com/project on calendars I am often asked to explain how they are used and how they affect the timing of a schedule.

In Project 2007 there are four calendars.  Those are listed here with a quick definition.

Base Calendar:  standard working and non-working times.  It is the default calendar that is used if no other ones are specified.

Project Calendar:  the calendar that the project uses.  This can be viewed as “when work can happen” and is representative of the available times for the work to be done.  For example, if a company only works certain days or set hours then that should be represented here, as should a company that works a 24 hour schedule.  It is representative of when the company is working – when a scheduled item on this schedule COULD be worked on – based on the other calendars is when the task will ACTUALLY be worked on.

Resource Calendar:  the calendar that the resource uses.  This is used so that resource groups can be scheduled similarly and so that individuals can have their vacations or other scheduled “non-scheduling” times accounted for.  As an example, if a certain department always has a Tuesday morning meeting from 10-12 every week, you can enter that into their resource calendar so that you don’t expect scheduled work to happen during that time.

Task Calendar:  the calendar that the task uses.  This can be used to schedule a task during non-regular-working hours or if it can only happen during a certain time.  For example, if taking down the email servers, it is probably best to force that to happen during the evening or weekend rather than during peak working hours.

Now, what does that mean and how does it work in reality?

Here is how a schedule works in Microsoft Project when you schedule a task.  You enter a task and lets say you give it “1 Day” duration.  The system will look at these calendars to determine when that 1 day actually will fall to be able to schedule the task.  At a high level, this means that the system looks to see what calendars might affect the ability of that task to begin or end at a certain time.

Think of it from this perspective:

First, when the system tries to schedule the task, it is going to try and determine what the available working hours are for the entire schedule – by using the project calendar.  The project calendar is set up by you with the regular working hours for you organization.  But, for the moment, let’s assume that you do not modify the standard project calendar from the default working times of Monday through Friday, 8-5, with an hour lunch.  So, if the project calendar is based on the standard default calendar then the system will schedule the task between 8-5 on a Monday through Friday. 

Then, the system will check the resource calendar (if it exists) to determine what working hours the resource works.  Normally, you add resources to a standard default resource calendar that you create and then you modify each resource according to their unique schedule (vacation, departmental hours, etc).  Let’s assume for the moment that we have a “normal” resource that works from 8-5, Monday through Friday with an hour lunch.  So, the system will have reviewed the project calendar and now the resource calendar and will have determined that this task can happen between the hours of 8-5, Monday through Friday.

Third, the system will look at the task calendar (if it exists) and determine when the task can be done.  This is the calendar that you set up to determine when a specific task can be done.  Again, if not using a specific calendar the default calendar will be used.

In this example, on a brand new task that we have just added it will be put into the schedule starting at 8 am on the next day (Monday through Friday).  I am ignoring predecessors and other factors affecting this specific task – we are just looking at hour calendars work.

Now, a way to view this in a chart and to use a more difficult, real world example:

Our first example used Monday through Friday and 8-5 for each calendar so the task was scheduled for 1 day according to this chart:

Project Calendar    Resource Calendar       Task Calendar            Scheduled

M-F                           M-F                                M-F                        Next available M-F

8-5                            8-5                                 8-5                          Between 8-5

So, what if we have a situation where we work 24 hours a day (three shifts), seven days a week and our schedule could be worked on by somebody, on any one of those shifts during any day?  Well, we have to set up our project calendar to represent the 24/7 aspect – this allows work to be scheduled any time in that 24 hour, 7 day window.  But, we have to have three resource calendars – one for each shift – and we have to assign each resource to a calendar.  This will let the system determine when each resource is available.  And, as before, if we set one up, we will have to determine the hour(s) that the specific task can be worked on.  For purposes of this example, let’s leave the task calendar as open to anytime.  And, for purposes of this example, let’s say that our resource is on a calendar that is Tuesday through Saturday from 11 pm to 8 am with an hour break.

This would look like this:

Project Calendar           Resource Calendar      Task Calendar                    Scheduled

Any day                            T-Sa                            Any Day               Next available T-Sa

24 hour                            11pm – 8am               24 hour                 Between 11p-8a

This time, the system scheduled the task to fall between Tuesday through Saturday and 11 pm to 8 am.  Why?  It did this because this was the next available time that the task could be worked on – the project calendar said that it could be worked on anytime, but the resource doesn’t work anytime – they work between certain hours on certain days.  So, the system used the most restrictive time – when the resource was available.

In the example above, without any outside influence (predecessors, etc) if we were to enter this into the schedule Monday morning at 8 am (when we work) then this task would be automatically scheduled by the system to occur the next night (Tuesday) at 11 pm.

Now, let’s add one more level of complexity.  What if the resource had this Tuesday and Wednesday off as a vacation day?  The system would move the task to start on Thursday at 11 pm.

So, the next time that you schedule a task and it appears that it is starting at an odd time, take a look at your calendars and see what might be affecting the task.