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• Introduction
• 1. Project organization
• 1.3 Creating a work schedule
• Conclusion

Introduction

The rapid development of computer technology and the creation of user-friendly software have led to the widespread use of information technology in all areas of human activity and served as an impetus for the development of a society built on the use of various information.

In a short period of time, information systems have developed from computer systems used in scientific research and automated control systems of large enterprises to complex automated information systems that make it possible to implement the entire range of not only processing and storing information, but also managing companies and organizations at all levels.

The creation of personal computers and an adapted graphical interface expanded the market for information products and services to the level of “home consumption.” Information systems have turned from a technological component of business and management into a factor of production, a factor of competition. However, along with the obvious advantages of using information systems, the problem of managing information systems arose.

The practice of creating and operating information systems has revealed problems and contradictions that could only be resolved by the introduction of comprehensive specialized information management. The costs of designing and implementing information systems usually significantly exceeded the planned amounts. The quality of development turned out to be unsatisfactory: contradictions between hardware and software during operation, increased costs for maintaining systems in operation, etc.

Today, the activities of any company and organization are highly dependent on the department that provides the company’s information environment, and this dependence intensifies over time. As a result, maintenance of information systems ceases to be just a technical task and is increasingly becoming an integral part of the business, integrated into the company’s business processes.

The level of development of an organization's information system and the importance of information technology for the organization's activities make IT departments of companies an integral part of the business. The complexity of tasks in managing information systems and personnel leads to the need to develop strategies in the field of information technology for specialized management - information management.

The use of computer equipment, application software, and network technologies is a matter of prestige and “advancement” of management for the company. Nobody demands any return from the information system, much less economic efficiency.

Information technologies and information systems are used at the level of operational management of an enterprise or organization - accumulation, storage, classification, primary processing of information. Information systems are used to solve business problems of an enterprise or organization.

An important factor in the training of highly qualified specialists in the field of economic information systems is comprehensive training, taking into account a wide range of areas of knowledge and specialized disciplines.

A special feature of the discipline “Information Management” is that this branch of knowledge arose relatively recently and is developing. Essentially, information management does not yet have any established terminology or methods and solutions that have become classical. As a result of this, specialists often use not only different concepts and terms, but also interpret information management tasks and the methodology for solving them in different ways. Research materials, practical advice, analysis of the development and implementation of information systems are the result of a discussion among specialists in the field of information technology and IT management.

1. Project organization

1.1 Creating a project in Microsoft Project

By default, Microsoft Project 2016 automatically opens the New command when you launch it, where you can choose how to create a new project. A project in Microsoft Project 2016 is an mpp file type. In order to forcefully create a new project in Microsoft Project 2016, you must use the "File" button to open the "Create" command.

Figure 1 - Creating a new project

Now you can choose how to create a new project:

ѕ select "New project" and click the "Create" command: the project will be created based on the Global template. mpt;

* create a new project from an existing document - a project, Excel workbook or SharePoint task list;

* create based on a template. You can choose a template from those available on your computer or on Office.com (if you have an Internet connection).

After creating a project file, it is recommended to save it immediately. To do this, click the "File" button, select the "Save" command, select a location to save the file and give the project file a "Name" (by default, the project file is called "Project1. mpp").

Figure 2 - Saving the project file

Microsoft Project 2016 supports export to PDF and XPS format.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a permanent markup electronic format that preserves document formatting and allows file sharing. The PDF format ensures that when you view a file online and when you print it, the original format is preserved and the file data cannot be easily changed. The PDF format is also useful when printing documents in a printing house.

XML Paper Specification (XPS). XPS is an electronic file format that preserves document formatting and allows file sharing. The XPS format ensures that when you view a file online and when you print it, the original format is preserved and the file data cannot be easily changed.

1.2 Creating a project calendar in Microsoft Project

In Microsoft Project, calendars are used to describe working and non-working hours.

Microsoft Project uses three types of calendars:

1. the project calendar defines the default working hours for the entire project (for all project resources and tasks);

2. resource calendars are used for individual resources or for groups of resources that have individual work schedules;

3. Task calendars are used for tasks that can be completed on a time different from the standard project calendar, for example, part of the project work can be completed only in the first half of the working day.

The project calendar defines the work schedule for all resources and tasks that do not use an individual calendar. Changes made to the project calendar are automatically reflected in resource calendars generated from the same project calendar.

Base calendars are used as project and task calendars and as the basis for resource calendars. Microsoft Project has three basic calendars:

1. Standard: working hours are Monday to Friday (9:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 18:00). This calendar is used by default when creating a new project;

2. 24 hours: no non-working hours;

3. Night shift: night shift from Monday night to Saturday morning (from 23:00 to 8:00 with an hour break).

Microsoft Project supports the creation of its own base calendars if the existing calendars do not meet the project's requirements.

Figure 3 - Creating a calendar

You can assign the created calendar to a project through the Project Details dialog box.

Figure 4 - Purpose of the created base calendar

1.3 Creating a work schedule

The “Software Development” project is designed to achieve a certain result within a certain time frame and for a certain amount of money. A project plan is written to determine what work will accomplish the project's outcome, what people and equipment will be needed to complete the work, and when those people and equipment will be available to work on the project. Therefore, the project plan contains three main elements: tasks, resources and assignments.

Drawing up a project plan in general consists of describing the project's tasks, available resources, and defining the interdependencies between them using assignments.

Work order:

1) Editing the initial parameters of the project.

To edit the initial parameters of the project, you need to go to the "Project" tab and click the "Project Information" button, and in the window that opens, determine the start date of work (Tue 04/05/16).

Figure 5 - Work start date

2) Creating a list of project tasks and their duration

Defining software development goals - 2 days.

Development planning - 4 days.

Theme code assignment - 3 days.

Selecting software development principles - 24 days.

Clarification of basic software requirements - 20 days.

Formation of the draft technical specifications - 7 days.

Coordination of the draft technical specifications with the software customer - 5 days.

Formation of a structural model - 7 days.

Formation of an object-oriented model - 30 days.

Determining the principles of constructing a screen interface - 35 days.

Development of main modules - 50 days.

Database development - 48 days.

Integration of all modules - 35 days.

Debugging - 5 days.

Beta version release - 2 days.

Collection of information about test results - 5 days.

Refinement of modules and database - 7 days.

Release of the final version - 5 days.

Formation of documentation necessary for certification - 5 days.

Internal audit of the software creation process - 2 days.

Conclusion of a certification agreement - 2 days.

Conducting software certification - 2 days.

3) Creating a list of resources

- 1 person

Programmer - 5 people.

Economist - 1 person.

Software auditor - 1 person.

4) Creating assignments (links)

The dependence of tasks and resources is given in the table.

Table 1 - Task dependencies

Using types of relationships (assignments), we will create a Gantt chart in accordance with Table 1.

Figure 6 - Gantt chart

1.2 Formation of the structure of the work schedule

When developing large projects consisting of a large number of works, Microsoft Project allows you to combine related works into groups. Creating a hierarchical project structure allows you to decompose the project work into smaller, visible and manageable parts, and more accurately determine both the composition and characteristics of the work to be performed.

One of the basic principles for constructing a hierarchical project structure is the principle of completeness. All work and results of the project, including intermediate and management ones, must be present in the hierarchical structure of the project.

The reverse is also true - work outside the project (that is, necessary for the successful completion of another project/process) should not be included.

Let's group the work into stages and enter the names of these stages.

* To create a group (stage), right-click on the first row of the table and select “Insert task” from the context menu;

* We call it “Organization of work”;

* Select the tasks: “Defining software development goals”, “Development planning”, “Assigning theme code” and “Selecting software development principles” and group them by clicking on the “Demote task level” button.

In a similar way, you need to group all subsequent tasks to create the following stages: “Development of technical specifications”, “Software development”, “Debugging and testing”, “Certification”.

The final stage will be the creation of the “Software Development” group, which will group all the stages created above.

Figure 7 - Hierarchical structure of the project

This problem can also be solved using a top-down method.

In the top-down method of project planning, major milestones are first identified and then broken down into individual tasks.

2. Project resource assignments

An assignment is the relationship between a task and the resource needed to complete that task. An arbitrary number of resources, both labor and material, can be assigned to one task (in other words, several assignments can be associated with one task).

To assign resources directly when describing a task, you must:

* Open the “Task Details” window; to do this, double-click on the task name or select the task and click on the “Details” button on the “Task” tab;

* In the “Task Details” window that opens, go to the “Resources” tab;

* In the input window, enter the name of the resource; if this name matches the name of an existing resource, it will automatically be assigned to the task; if the name does not match, a new resource of the “Labor” type will be created. To avoid duplication, select an empty line and click on the down arrow on the right side of the line, then select the resource name from the drop-down list;

* The "Owner" field displays the user name of the owner of the resource to whom approval for the use of this resource will be sent. For all local and universal resources, this field is empty;

* In the "Units" field, enter the volume of the required resource. If a labor resource is necessary to indicate the percentage of the resource’s time that it will spend on the implementation of this task. If a material resource is entered, its quantity is specified in the dimension specified in the “Resource Sheet” view. If it is a costly resource, do not enter anything;

* The “Costs” field will display the cost of using this resource. For labor and material resources, this value will be calculated automatically when you click the "OK" button. For costly resources, you must indicate the amount you plan to spend on the implementation of this task with this resource.

Figure 8 - Assignment of resources when describing a task

Assigning a resource to a task:

* Go to the Gantt chart view and go to the "Resources" page;

* Select the task to which you want to create a resource assignment;

ѕ Click on the “Assign resources” button. A corresponding dialog box will appear;

* In the "Resource Name" field, select the resource that needs to be assigned to the task. If you need to create a new resource, go to an empty cell in the dialog box table and enter the name of the resource. By double-clicking on the resource name, the “Resource Information” window will appear, with which you can enter information about the resource;

* In the Units field, indicate the allocated number of resource units in this assignment. For a work resource, the value is indicated as a percentage (amount of working time).

The execution result is shown in Figure 8.

3. Project progress tracking

To make management decisions, you need up-to-date and reliable information about the progress of the project.

When managing a project, you need to keep track of the elements of the project triangle: time, budget, and scope. Adjusting one element affects the other two. Events such as unforeseen delays, cost overruns, and resource replacements can cause scheduling problems.

If project data is constantly updated, then you can always view the latest project status. You can track the actual progress of tasks, the actual labor costs of resources, compare actual costs with the planned budget, and level the load on resources. All this will allow you to identify potential problems in time to find and apply the right solution.

Once a project is created and work begins, you can track actual start and finish dates, percentage of tasks completed, or actual work spent. Actual data shows the impact of changes on other tasks and ultimately on the project completion date.

Identify one or two progress indicators to use in the project. For example, resources can quickly report the percentage of work completed by task, providing an overview of task progress. Or, conversely, resources can report hours of work on each task by week. This will take more time, but will give a detailed picture of the progress of the work. The choice of indicators depends on your preferences and priorities.

To track the progress of work, you need to create a mark on completion of the “Define software development goals” stage. To do this, on the Gantt chart, move the mouse pointer to the left side of the graph (the pointer will change its appearance to a percent sign with an arrow to the right). Then you need to press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, drag the mouse pointer to the right.

Figure 9 - Mark on completion of the stage “Define software development goals”

There is another way to mark completion of the Development Planning stage. To do this, select the “Development Planning” stage and double-click on it with the left mouse button. In the "Task Details" dialog box that appears, on the "General" tab, you need to set 100% in the "Percentage of completion" field and click the "OK" button.

Figure 10 - Mark on completion of the “Development Planning” stage

A mark indicating the completion of the stage will appear on the left side of the Gantt chart table, and a dark blue bar will appear on the chart itself, which shows the percentage of completion of the work stage. If the work is 100% completed, then the stripe will be from the beginning to the end of the block of work.

Figure 11 - Example of work completed at 70%

Figure 11 shows an example of incomplete completion of work, which shows that on the Gantt chart the dark blue bar does not reach the end of the block of work (lower right corner). Everything that was done before would be useless if Microsoft Project did not have the ability to generate reports. "Project Overview" - a report showing the percentage completion of the project. To generate it, you need to go to the “Report” tab, click on the “Dashboards” button and select “Project Review”.

Figure 12 - Project Overview

"Cost Summary" is a more comprehensive report showing both percentage completion and cash costs (both costs already spent and costs remaining).

Figure 13 - Cost overview

"Critical tasks" - a report that gives the user the opportunity to see the remaining critical tasks. Critical tasks are tasks on which the entire project depends.

Figure 14 - Critical tasks

Conclusion

Microsoft Project is the most popular project management tool provided by Microsoft. The application is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, managing budgets and analyzing workload.

Microsoft Project can help you create a plan based on the critical path. Graphs can also be applied to distribute resource requests evenly. The critical path is presented in the form of a Gantt chart.

Resource definitions (people, equipment, and materials) can be shared among projects using a common pool of resources. Each resource can have its own calendar, which determines the days and shifts that are available to it. Resource metrics are used to calculate the costs of completing tasks, which are calculated and summed up into an overall resource level.

Each resource can be assigned multiple tasks in multiple plans, and each job can be assigned multiple resources. Microsoft Project schedules the work defined in the associated calendars based on resource availability. All resources can be defined in a common corporate resource base.

Microsoft Project creates budgets based on resource metrics and assigned work. As resources are assigned to jobs and that work is estimated, Microsoft Project calculates costs, which equal the work times the metrics. This is all added up to the total job level, then to the total job costs and finally to the total project costs.

project program management decision

List of sources used

Posted on Allbest.ru

1. Belyaeva S.A. The role of planning in the process of managing innovative projects // Production Organizer. - 2010

2. Betanova I. The role of HR in project management // Handbook of personnel management. - 2011.

3. Betanova I. The role of HR in project management // Handbook of personnel management. - 2011.

4. Ganchin V.V. The role of project management in the innovative development of the electric power industry in the Russian Federation // Economics and management: ros. scientific magazine - 2011.

5. Goncharenko S. Project management // Quality management. - 2011.

6. Emelyanov Yu. Management of innovative projects in a company // Problems of theory and practice of management. - 2011.

7. Ivasenko A.G. Project management: a textbook for students. - Rostov n/d.: Phoenix, 2009.

8. PMSOFT conferences on project management // Problems of management theory and practice. - 2011.

9. Kuznetsov A.A. Process project management at the enterprise // Management today. - 2011.

10. Kuperstein V. Microsoft Project 2010 in project management. - St. Petersburg: BHV-Petersburg, 2011.

11. Lapygin Yu.N. Assessing the effectiveness of project management // Economic analysis: theory and practice. - 2011.

12. Mazur I.I. Management of investment and construction projects: an international approach. - M.: Omega-L, 2011.

13. Matveeva L.G. Project management: textbook. - Rostov n/d.: Phoenix, 2009.

14. Mylnikov L.A. Microeconomic problems of managing innovative projects // Problems of management. - 2011.

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Microsoft Project is a comprehensive software - a project management system and a method for optimizing portfolio management, which allows you to plan and control the project activities of organizations. For this, built-in templates, tools for various levels of analytics and statistics, working time management tools, etc. are used. The article describes the functions and tells in more detail what Ms Project is, how to work in the program, and how to use all Microsoft Project capabilities.

General characteristics and place of the product among competitors

Since 2007, each new version of Ms Project has been released every three years. Thus, the latest application at the moment is the 2016 version of the application with a subscription to Office 365, compatible with Windows 10, 8.1 and 7. Compared to other similar programs, Ms Project is considered the most widespread and “lightest”, belonging to the entry-level software project management with a classic standard office interface. In the market of single-user and small solutions, the software product occupies about 80% (about 20 million people use it).

As an integrated set of methods, processes and tools, Ms Project is considered to be more commonly used for relatively small project projects. However, the existence of several paid options - basic, professional and advanced - when choosing the most complete functionality, you can significantly expand the capabilities of the program compared to the basic version.

However, competitors - analogues of Ms Project, increasing their competitive advantages, often “build up” precisely by scaling cost and resource planning tools and ensuring the organization of multi-user work.

Among such programs aimed at large projects, one can highlight the Russified Open Plan.

Another area of ​​“tuning” is product specialization. Among such software, Primavera is popular, widely used in the field of engineering and construction projects as a scheduling and network planning tool that allows taking into account financial, material and labor resources in medium and large projects. Cloud-based software tool Basecamp is considered a major competitor in the ultra-lightweight management solutions segment. At the same time, Microsoft has also been offering a cloud version of its product since 2013.

In addition to the cloud application, several products are available under the Project brand:

1. Project Standard allows for customized planning for small projects.

2. Corporate governance is carried out using a special platform, including:

• Project Server itself,
• corporate version of Project Professional, where collaboration tools (Project Server and SharePoint Foundation / Server) are added to the capabilities of the Standard version,
• Web interface technology for reporting performers on the progress of tasks, for viewing project portfolios and other collaboration (Project Web Access).

The basis for the almost monopolistic popularity of the Microsoft product is that it represents part of the Ms Office family, which makes it possible to:

• it’s easier to master the management of tools in the familiar environment of Ms Office products (the stylistic similarity of the Project interface with Excel is obvious),
• configure Ms Project formulas in Excel formula style,
• adapt the product to the specifics of your business, by programming or purchasing ready-made solutions based on Microsoft.Net or Visual Basic.

To reduce technical support issues, Microsoft (for example, through the Microsoft ISV Royalty program) incentivizes the purchase of turnkey solutions from partners, while compensating customers for developing industry-specific solutions.

Objectives and capabilities of the program

It is recommended to start working in Microsoft Project by mastering the project approach as such - becoming familiar with its principles and design methods. This is necessary in order to use the tools correctly: divide large projects into parts, adjust time estimates, take into account and incorporate risks, monitor teamwork and use motivational techniques. In the training manual released in 2013 by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation for the development of Project 2010, the first chapters are devoted to an introduction to the basics of project management - planning techniques and the construction of the “project triangle” (“time-cost-scope of work”).

If a project approach is implemented, the Project program helps solve the following problems:

To work in the program, the concepts “Task”, “Resource” and “Purpose” are used. To achieve the project goal, work is broken down into tasks. The concept of “resource” is most often applied to an employee, but can also apply to real estate, equipment, and materials. In Microsoft Project, assignments occur when resources are allocated to a task. It is the assignments that determine the amount of time required to solve problems and, as a result, the total time of the project. For display, analysis and input there are so-called. representations of tasks (Gantt Chart, Task Form, etc.), resources (Resource Graph, Resource Sheet) and assignments (for example, Resource Usage), which are graphical, tabular and form views.

In order to more fully display the necessary information on one screen, instead of a single (normal) presentation mode, a combined mode is displayed by checking a “checkbox” in the menu. In this case, the screen is split horizontally, allowing you to see two views at the same time.

The division of project work forms a structure in which tasks are represented by different types:

1. A separate task.
2. A summary task (phase) consisting of a group of related tasks.
3. A milestone is a reference mark - a point of an important event by which the progress of the project is monitored.
4. A recurring task that arises regularly during the course of a project (for example, “morning meetings”).

Starting with Project 2010, tasks can be scheduled in both automatic and manual modes, in this case placing the task anywhere on the schedule.

In the package of benefits that are appreciated by Intel, Tesla, Toyota, BMW, Kraft, 21st Century Fox, British Airways and millions of other companies, innovations are constantly appearing, which can be found on the official Project website, in a special Russian blog or in the Facebook and Vkontakte communities .

C creation of a new project in MS Project

As an example, let’s consider a project to design and develop a store’s business card website using cms.

The first steps in creating a project schedule are: starting a new project plan, defining a start or end date for the project, and entering general project information.

1. Launch MS Project.
2. Click the Create button on the toolbar Standard or run the command File/New .
3. In the Project menu select teamProject information. Enter or select a project start date of October 17, 2008 and click OK.

When starting a new project in Microsoft Project, you can enter either a start date or an end date for the project, but not both. It is recommended to enter only start date project, and the end date will be calculated in Microsoft Project after entering and scheduling tasks. If the project must be completed by a specific date, you should enter only the end date of the project. Initial planning should be done from the end date to determine the date when the project needs to start.

1. Click the Save button.
2. In the File name field enter project nameWebsite development 1and then click the button Save .

Entering key project information

Each project contains a unique set of components: the purpose of the project, specific tasks, and the people performing them. To remember all the important information and how it relates, you should enter project data and refer to it as needed.

1. In the File menu select team Properties and open the tab Document.
2. Enter any information about the project, such as who will manage it and maintain the project file, describe the purpose of the project, known limitations, and enter other general notes about the project.
3. Click OK button.

Setting up a project calendar

Project calendarcan be modified to reflect working days and hours for each project participant.Standard calendar: working days from Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 18:00, with an hour lunch break. You can also independently define non-working hours, such as weekends or nights, as well as special days off, such as holidays.

1. In the View menu select team Gantt chart.

This view is used to display the default settings for a new project. The Project View window has an additional vertical title bar that displays the name of the view.

1. In the Tools menu select teamChange working hours.
2. Select a date on the calendar, for example January 1, 2008.
3. Select an option non-working hours for weekends from January 1 to January 9, February 23 and March 8.
4. Select an optionnon-standard working hoursto change opening hours on Friday, in the field WITH indicate 9:00 to 13:00 and end time in the field From 14:00 to 17:00.
5. Click OK button.

Entering and organizing a task list

Upon completion of this lesson, you will have created a task list organized by summary and detailed tasks.

Entering tasks and their durations

A typical project is a collection of related tasks . The task is determined by the scope of work and specific results ; it should be short enough to allow progress to be monitored regularly. The duration of tasks should usually range from one day to two weeks.

1. In the project window (represented as Gantt charts in ) in the Task Name field Enter the name of the first task (see Figure 1). In column Duration Microsoft Project enters with a question mark the estimated duration of the task, which is one day.

You can add notes for each task. In field Task name select a task and click the button Task notes . Enter information in the fieldNotes and click OK button.

1. In the Duration field Enter the time required to complete the task (see Figure 1). The execution time is entered in months, weeks, days, hours or minutes, excluding non-working days. The following abbreviations may be used.

months = month weeks = n days = d hours = h minutes = min

Note. To set an approximate duration, enter a question mark after it.

1. Press the ENTER key.
2. On the following lines, enter additional tasks required to complete the project. How to organize and change them will be discussed later.

Note. You do not need to enter dates in the Start and Finish fields for each task. In Microsoft Project, start and end dates are calculated based on relationships between tasks, which will be discussed in the next lesson.

Pre-project survey

Defining a project day

Planning

Work schedule days

Day budget planning

Risk planning day

Design

Determining the topic and organization of content for the day

Content analysis day

Content structuring

Creating a content delivery plan

Day design design

Designing SCRIPT's

Design of a hosting site

Content design

Design completed 0 days

Data analysis and management

Implementation

Development of templates (design) days

Development of graphic content (buttons, logos) days

CMS ) days

Resource filling (content) days

Hosting day

Documentation (instructions) days

Analysis of patterns from the point of view of usability, customer and management decision (risk decisions) days

Testing

Internal testing

Usability test day

Functional test

Content test (in terms of grammar and logic) days

External testing day

Finalization of days

Implementation

Transfer of the site to the customer

Conducting a master class on using data

Promotion

Optimization for search engines

Registration in search engines

Filling each element with information

Implementation completed 0 days

Analysis and archiving of day documentation

Conclusion of a contract for day support

Waiver of claims

Rice. 1. Project plan

Creating a milestone

Milestone This is a task used to mark significant calendar events, such as the completion of a major work phase. When you enter a duration of zero for a task in Microsoft Project, the Gantt chart displays a milestone symbol at the start of the corresponding day.

1. In the Duration field Click the duration of the task you want to make a milestone, and then enter a value 0d . Press the key ENTER.

Note. A task with zero duration is automatically marked as a milestone, but any task can be made a milestone. To mark a task as a milestone, select the task in the field Task name. Click the button Task detailson the standard toolbar (or run the commandProject/Task Details). Select a tab Additionally and then check the boxMark the task as a milestone.

Organizing tasks into a logical structure

Structuringhelps organize tasks into more manageable components. By creating a hierarchy, you can combine related tasks into a more general task. Common tasks are called summary tasks (or phases); tasks combined under a summary task are called subtasks . The start and end dates of a summary task are determined by the start and end dates of its first and last subtasks. In our example, the summary (phases) are tasks -Pre-project survey, Design, Implementation, Testing, Implementation.

To organize the structure, you should use the structure buttons.

1. In the Task Name field highlight the tasks that need to be turned into subtasks.
2. Click the Indent button to indent tasks.
3. Do the same with the remaining subtasks.

Changing the task list

Once you have created a task list, you may need to rearrange the tasks, copy a set of tasks, or delete tasks that are no longer needed.

1. In the "Identifier" field » (far left field) select the task you want to copy, move, or delete. To highlight a row, click the task ID number. To select multiple adjacent lines by holding down the key SHIFT , click the first and last row numbers in the desired range. To select several lines scattered, press the key CTRL and, while holding it, click the task identification numbers one by one.
2. Copy, move, or delete a task. To copy a task, click the button Copy . To move a task, click the button Cut . To delete a task, press DEL.
3. To move a cut block or paste a copied block, select the rows where you want to paste it. Make sure the required rows are selected. Click the button Insert . If the rows you paste on contain information, new rows will be inserted above those rows.
4. Save your project file periodically.

Advice. To add a new task between existing ones, select the task ID number and press the key INS . After inserting a new task, all tasks are renumbered automatically.

Creating relationships between tasks

One of the most reliable ways to schedule tasks is to establish relationships between them, i.e.task dependencies. Task dependencies reflect the dependency of subsequent tasks, or followers , earlier tasks, orpredecessors. For example, if the "Paint the wall" task must be completed before the "Hang the clock" task, you can link the two tasks so that the "Paint the wall" task becomes the predecessor and the "Hang the clock" task becomes the successor.

Types of task links

MS Project has four types of links between tasks. A Finish-to-start relationship, or FS for short, is the most common type of dependency between tasks, in which task B cannot start until task A is completed:

A Start-to-start relationship, or SS for short, denotes a dependency in which task B cannot begin until task A has begun. For example, Technical Editing cannot begin before Editing materials, but in order to start Technical editing, it is not necessary to wait until the end of Editing materials. This type of communication typically combines tasks that need to be completed almost simultaneously.

A Finish-to-Finish relationship, or FF (00) for short, denotes a dependency in which task B cannot finish until task A has finished. Typically, this relationship combines tasks that must be completed almost immediately. simultaneously, but one cannot end until the other is completed. For example, the delivery and acceptance of a program occurs simultaneously with the correction of errors (found during the delivery and acceptance process), and until the correction of errors is completed, the delivery and acceptance cannot be completed either.

A Start-to-Finish relationship, or SF for short, is a dependency in which task B cannot finish until task A has started. Typically, this relationship is used when A is a task with a fixed start date that cannot be changed. In this case, the start date of the subsequent task does not change as the duration of the previous task increases.

Once tasks are linked, changing the predecessor's dates affects the changes in the successors' dates. Microsoft Project creates a Finish-Start task dependency by default. However, since the Finish-Start relationship is not suitable for every case, for real project modeling task connection can be changed to Start-Start, Finish-Finish, or Start-Finish.

Using delays and advances

Often in life, dependencies between tasks are a little more complex than Finish-to-start. For example, a day must pass between the task “Painting the walls” and “Hanging pictures” to allow the paint to dry. In order to describe such a dependence between tasks, MS Project uses the Lag parameter. For example, in the case of painting walls, the delay between tasks should be 1 day.

Lag is a property of the link and can be specified in the Define Link Properties dialog box (for example, 1 day) or as a percentage of the duration of the predecessor task. For example, if the predecessor task lasts 4 days, then a lag of 25% would be equal to 1 day.

Sometimes you don't have to wait until the previous one is completely finished to start the next task. For example, you can start gluing wallpaper when plaster is laid on at least some walls in the house. In this case, you should use Lead. Lead is entered in the same way as lag, but with a negative sign, for example, a lead of 1 day is indicated as -Id (-1d), and a lead of 50% (that is, the next task begins when the previous one is half completed) as -50% .

Ways to create connections

Using the mouse

A link is created by dragging the mouse from one Gantt chart bar to another, with the default link type defined as FS. The predecessor task is the one with which dragging began, and the subsequent task is the one at which dragging ended (the arrow at the end of the link indicates the subsequent task). To delete a connection or change its type, you need to double-click on the diagram and perform the appropriate operations in the dialog box that opens.

Using the menu

To link two or more tasks to each other, select them in the Task name , and in the same order in which they should be connected. To select multiple tasks in a row, press SHIFT and while holding it, click the first and last tasks. To select multiple tasks randomly, press CTRL and, while holding it, click the desired tasks one by one.

Click the Link tasks button ( or run the commandEdit/Link tasks).

To change a task link, double-click the task link you want to change. The Task Dependencies dialog box opens. If the Line Styles dialog box opens, you didn't click a link line; You must close this dialog box and double-click the task link again.

In a combo box Type select the desired type of connection between tasks and click the button OK.

To unlink tasks, select those tasks in the Task Name field and click the buttonBreak task links. All connections are deleted and all tasks are rescheduled based on restrictions , such as “As soon as possible” or “Actual completion.”

Editing relationships in a table

To quickly identify a task's predecessor as you enter tasks, use the Predecessors column, which is included by default in the Entry table.

In cases where the connection differs from the standard one, the field must indicate the number of the preceding task and the abbreviation corresponding to the type of connection. If a connection has a delay or advance, then it must be indicated next to the connection type using the + or - signs. If delay or advance is used with a standard FS (OH) connection, then its abbreviation must also be indicated. And if a task has several predecessors, then connections with them must be indicated using a semicolon.

Editing relationships in a form

If you use various types of connections in your project, then it will be more convenient to use special dialog boxes for working with them. The most convenient is the Task Form dialog box. This form is displayed if, while in the Gantt chart, you select the Window/Split menu command.

Establish connections between tasks in the project (see Table 1).

Table 1

Project start date

Let our project begin on Monday 10/20/2008.

1. Open the project definition dialog using the Project/Project Information menu command (Project/Project Details) and change the value of the Start date parameter ( Start date) on 10/20/2008 . After this, the project plan will be automatically rebuilt.
2. Website development 1.

Restrictions and deadlines

Linking a task to a specific date in MS Project is done using the Constraint element ( Limitation ). Using constraints, you can, for example, specify that a task must start on a certain day or finish no later than a certain date.

By defining task durations and relationships between them, you give the program the flexibility to recalculate the project plan if the schedule changes. The introduction of restrictions reduces this flexibility, and MS Project distinguishes several types of restrictions (Table 2) depending on how much they affect the flexibility of calculations.

In projects scheduled from the start date, by default all tasks have the As Soon As Possible constraint (As soon as possible), and in projects planned from the end date, As Late As Possible ( As late as possible).

table 2

You can change default constraints by entering a task's start or end date in the Start and Finish columns in the Entry table or any other table that contains these columns. After entering the date, MS Project will set the limit in accordance with the table. 2.

Deadline ) date indicating the deadline for completing the task. The difference between using a deadline and a constraint is that having a deadline does not affect the calculation of the project schedule. If a task has a deadline, a corresponding mark is displayed on the Gantt chart, and if the task is not completed within this deadline, a special icon appears in the Indicators column.

Constraints must be in the plan before you move from planning the scope of work to planning the resources involved in the project. This is due to the fact that the deadline for completing work usually depends on the number of allocated performers, and the presence of deadlines will suggest when it is necessary to allocate more employees to the task in order to meet the deadline, and when less, if the deadline is not pressing.

The main restrictions on the timing of the main phases can be introduced after drawing up the skeleton plan of the project. After all the work has been added to the plan, you need to limit the most important of them, and only then proceed to determining connections and durations. Usually, already at this stage it is possible to find out whether the work is within the deadlines and to adjust the duration of some tasks.

An example of using restrictions and deadlines

Since in our example we did not define restrictions and deadlines at the stage of drawing up the skeletal work plan, we will begin to determine deadlines and restrictions in the current work plan. In projectDesign and development of a store business card website using cmswe will use both types of MS Project restrictions: and actually restrictions and deadlines , so you can compare the ease of use of them.

Let's assume that the site takes an average of 4 months to develop. This means that starting the development of the site at the end of October, we must complete it in mid-February, for example, no later than the 20th. Since this date is usually specified in the contract with the customer to whom the site is transferred, this restriction is very strict. Accordingly, for the final task Waiver of Claims, you need to set the Finish No Later Than constraint on the date 20.02.09.

1. Why do you need to double-click on the task to open a dialog box?Task detailsand go to the tab Additionally.
2. In the Advanced tab in the Constraint type dropdown list ( Restriction type) select Finish no later than.
3. In the Constraint date field ( Restriction date) indicate the date by which the completion of the task is limited- 20.02.09.

Sometimes, to cancel a constraint, you need to delete the entered date in the Constraint date field. But MS Project does not allow you to leave this field empty, and therefore, to remove the date from the field, you need to replace it with the text NA (ND).

1. Click OK button.

When setting a constraint, MS Project checks to see if the task has any relationships, and if there are any, analyzes whether the constraint being set could lead to conflicts. If, in the opinion of the program, this is possible, then a hint is displayed with which you can cancel setting the limit (first switch), continue using another (optimal, from the point of view of MS Project) limit (second switch), or continue using the selected limit (third switch).

In our case, the task subject to the Finish No Later Than constraint (Finish no later than), there is a predecessor, and if it ends later than the constraint date, it will cause a conflict. MS Project considers it optimal in our situation to use the Finish No Earlier Than constraint (Finish no earlier), but it doesn't suit us at all.

Note: You can get information about the type of constraint created by hovering the mouse over the corresponding icon in the Indicators field ( Indicators).

1. Then assume that, under a contract with a freelance developer providing template development services,Template development(this task has no predecessors) should start 20.11.08 and take place within 5 days. Accordingly, we will fix this date with the Must Start On restriction (Fixed start) and duration in 5 days.
2. Let's include important task No. 18 in the planDesign completed. According to the contract, the design must be completed 5 days before the stage Implementations, that is, until November 20, 2008.
3. Set a task deadlineHosting on 12/26/08.
4. You can host a website only when at least half of the development of templates, graphic design, CMS has been completed and the content of the resource has been filled. Therefore we will link the problemHosting placementsdependence FS (OH) with the problemResource content (content)and set the lag (Lag) to -50%.
5. Hostingis, in fact, final, since after its completion one of the project results is achieved, which is transmitted “outside” by the project team. In this case, the duration of the finishing tasks is not zero. To mark a task with a non-zero duration as final, you need to use the Advanced tab ( Additionally ) in the task details dialog box. On the tab you need to check the Mark task as milestone checkbox (Mark a task as a milestone).

Repetitive tasks

Often in a project, some tasks occur regularly, such as preparing reports for the project client or meeting the project team. Recurring tasks are designed to describe such tasks in a project plan. You can add them to the project using the Insert/Recurring task menu command (Insertion/Repeating Task), which opens the recurring task details dialog box.

In our project we will create a recurring taskProject team meeting, which will be implemented on Fridays.

1. Let's execute the commandInsertion/Repetitive task.
2. In the recurring task details dialog box that opens, indicate the name - Project team meeting and duration 2 hours.
3. Let's determine the task repetition intervalweekly, on Fridays.

In the Calendar for scheduling this task section (Calendar for scheduling this task) determines on the basis of which calendar the task will be placed in the calendar plan. By default, when the Calendar drop-down list is set to None, the task is allocated based on the project and resource calendar settings. If you want to use a special calendar to schedule a task, you can select it in the drop-down list. In this case, the Scheduling ignores resource calendars checkbox becomes available.(We'll look at the effect of this flag in detail in the section"Task Calendar" later).

1. After all the settings have been made, you need to press the button OK , and the program will create a recurring task in the project.

Unforeseen problems may arise if, for example, the task is repeated on a weekend. MS Project will detect this and display a message with options to resolve the problem: reschedule the task to the next business day by clicking Yes, not creating a repeat on non-working days by clicking No, or not creating a recurring task by clicking Cancel.

After placing a recurring task in a project, the task itself appears as a phase in the plan, and its repetitions as its nested tasks. The task and repetitions are marked with special icons in the Indicators field.

Summary project task

Once the scope of work is determined, our plan consists of four phases that combine all the tasks of the project. The duration is known for each of them, but we do not have general information about the duration of the entire project. It cannot be obtained by adding the durations of the phases, since they are partially carried out simultaneously, which means that the total duration of the project is not equal to the duration of its phases. To assemble the phases into a single whole, you can create another phaseDesign and development of a store business card website based on cmsand include all existing phases into it. But it's more correctdisplay Project Summary Task(Project summary task) A special task specifically designed to combine all project activities. It appears on the Gantt chart in a special color, and MS Project works with it in a special way.

1. To display the project summary task, in the menu Options on the View tab ) you need to check the Show project summary task (Show summary project task). The summary task will be displayed with a title taken from the Title field in the file properties, which can be edited in the dialog box opened by the File/Properties menu command ( File/Properties ).

If the Comments field in this dialog box is filled in ( Notes ), then its value will become a comment on the summary task. When you change the name of a summary task or a comment (Notes), the values ​​of the corresponding field in the file properties will automatically change.

1. Save the project file asWebsite development 2.

A Gantt chart is a linear chart that specifies the start and end dates of interrelated work, indicating the resources used to complete it.

• Tutorial

A short introduction

First, let's remember what is usually required of a project manager. For experienced managers this is obvious, but for beginners (or those just planning to become managers) it will be useful to remember once again. So, a software development project is the creation of some unique product. At different stages of the project life cycle, the project manager is required to solve different problems.

Before starting the project

1. how long will the project take?
2. how much will the project cost

Note. I have never had to deal with explicit monetary estimates of a project, and, as I now understand, this is a serious omission. All the projects that I managed were carried out by company employees. The project team was formed for the entire duration of the project, some specialists were involved for a certain period of time. In fact, I am required to estimate the number of required performers, as well as the timing of their attraction. It seems to me that this is a fairly typical situation for software development companies. In the end, it all comes down to estimating labor costs, which, using empirical formulas, turns into an estimate of the cost of the project. As you can see, there is a direct relationship between the cost of the project and its timing.

During the project

Upon completion of the project

What MS Project can do

Let us briefly examine the properties of entities.

Task has a duration, volume, assigned resource and a damn lot of other properties. If the built-in properties are not enough, you can add your own - we will use this later. Tasks can be interconnected by various relationships (predecessors, successors, etc.).

Resource has many descriptive properties, but the most important thing is that it can be
set availability in time; a calendar is used for this. The resource may be
assigned to the task.

Based on this data, Project can make various views using
filters, groupings, sortings, etc. In addition, he can use some algorithm
calculate the start and end dates of tasks taking into account the availability of assigned resources
and connections between tasks. That, in fact, is almost all he can do.
Let's see how we can benefit from this

How to use it

Note To make it clearer, I will clarify some general properties of projects,
with whom I worked. So, we are talking about software development projects,
which consist of several stages. At the end of each stage we should get some
tangible result that will be presented to the customer, so it is important for us to evaluate
the deadline not only for the project as a whole, but also for each stage. I repeat, the only type of resource
what is required are people, and we do not hire specialists from outside, but use
capabilities of existing employees.

Preparing a plan

1. How long will this project take?
2. How many (and what) specialists will this require?
3. What approximately labor costs are expected for this project?

1. Preparing a task list
2. We set dependencies between tasks
   (the result of which task is necessary to move on to the next one?).
3. We assign task executors
4. Leveling resource load
5. Balancing what happened

1. We do not use summary problems for decomposition.
   We place all tasks in one linear list. It may seem inconvenient at first,
   but it saves you from many problems in the future. To manage task structure
   We use custom fields (see below).
2. Very often, Drag&Drop is used to manage task dependencies. When there are a lot of tasks it quickly becomes inconvenient. In this case, I recommend not using drag-and-drop, but explicitly specifying the numbers of predecessor tasks. To do this, you can add a “predecessors” column to the table and enter task numbers manually.
3. The duration of each task should not exceed two weeks.
   If the task duration exceeds a week, this is already a reason to think about its decomposition. I followed a very simple assessment methodology: a primitive task - 2 days, an average
   difficulty - 1 week, difficult task - 2 weeks. At the same time, there should not be many difficult tasks. This approach makes it possible to prepare an assessment plan quite quickly.
   On the one hand, the resulting estimate, of course, will not be accurate, but, on the other hand, which of them is accurate? From practical experience I can say that
   On large projects, the errors in estimates of individual tasks are usually leveled out, but on small projects it is often possible (and necessary!) to use more accurate estimates.
4. We do our best to avoid tasks that have multiple performers. Only one executor should be assigned to each task. It makes sense to appoint two performers
   only if they are actually working together (for example, you are practicing pair programming). In other cases, it is better to decompose the problem.
5. When appointing performers, we are guided by their profession and qualifications, without worrying about the uniformity of workload for now.
6. We use summary tasks to divide tasks into stages. We put dependencies between the stages so that they proceed sequentially. The division into stages is still quite approximate.

Balancing the project

After the initial preparation of the plan, the result is usually a complete disgrace, not a project. Therefore, we begin to put it in order. Tidying up involves manually balancing the assignments of performers and divisions into stages. For this we use grouping tasks by performer to see how the tasks are broken down. For ease of viewing, I recommend sorting tasks by start date.

Note. Theoretically, graphs should be used to estimate load
user downloads. These graphs are good (probably) for management when they
evaluate the finished project. But they are unsuitable at the stage of creating a plan, since they show
that everything is bad, but they give absolutely no information about why this is so and what can be done.

Then the magic of balancing begins. It is required to minimize the completion time of each stage by ensuring a more or less even load on all project participants. To do this we perform the following steps:

1. Change task executor.

   It makes sense to do this if we see that one executor has a large tail of tasks,
   and the other has obvious “holes”, and he can take over some of the work from
   first.

2. Move the task to another stage.

   A task that leads to an extension of the stage, but is not necessary
   to obtain the result of a stage can be transferred to a stage later. And vice versa,
   if the stage contains “holes” in the loading of performers, and change the performers
   If it doesn’t work out, then you can try to take tasks from the next stage.

Now we carefully look at the project again, making sure that the connections between tasks are placed correctly, that nothing is forgotten, and the assignments of the performers correspond to their specialties and qualifications.

Risk accounting

As a result of all the above manipulations, we get a project execution plan that we can work with.

With this plan we can:

1. State the timing of the project and its stages. Reasonably and with a high degree of
   reliability.
2. Estimate approximate labor costs for the project

Working with the plan

1. Issue tasks to performers
2. Mark completed tasks in the plan
3. Adjust the plan in case of significant deviations

Note. Usually I don’t move tasks on the calendar, but only note how complete they are. I track deviations from the plan by the deviation of the overall project task from the current moment.

There is another strategy - making changes to task deadlines, “pushing” unfulfilled tasks forward. With this approach, you can use another useful MS Project feature - the baseline - to track deviations from the plan. A baseline is simply a saved snapshot of the state of tasks. This can be done at the beginning of the project. To compare the current plan with the baseline, open the “Gantt chart with tracking”. For a dynamic plan where the order of tasks changes frequently, this can be inconvenient, so I insert milestones into the project that reflect some important project deliverables and track deviations from the baseline only for those.

Manage task structure using custom fields

After this, we get the opportunity to specify for each task the component to which it belongs, and, using task grouping by components, track how things are going.

Custom fields allow you to divide tasks into several categories, for example, I divided tasks by type of work: Development, Testing, Documentation.
Let me mention for those curious that in MS Project you can also set rules for drawing diagrams based on task properties. If desired, you can make tasks for different components have different colors, and the color will be determined only by the task property; it does not need to be set manually for each task. Such settings do not require writing scripts, but are done using standard chart configuration tools.

The use of custom fields, as well as the filtering, sorting and grouping functions built into MS Project, allows you to get a variety of views that allow you to get answers to many of the questions that arise for a project manager.

Completion of the project

Conclusion

I'm sure I missed something, feel free to ask questions.