Project Management with Microsoft Project (Complex Projects)

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About this class

Project managers are often tasked with maintaining complex or multiple projects and require the ability to share resources and performance data. When the scope or volume of projects does not sustain the investment in Project Server, managers can leverage Microsoft Project Professional as a standalone solution.

This course provides the skills to manage multiple or complex projects with Project Professional. You learn to create cross-project links, develop shared resources, and track and report status across multiple projects.

Who will the lesson benefit?

This course is useful for project managers working in a multiproject environment. Participants should be able to enter and link tasks, create and assign resources, save a baseline and track progress for single projects, or should have equivalent experience at the level of Course 299, " Microsoft Project Introduction ".

What delegates will learn

• Leverage Microsoft Project Professional tools and techniques in a multiproject environment
• Reorganise large or complex projects into master and subprojects
• Optimise resource assignments across projects and resolve over allocations
• Track schedule, completeness and budget on complex projects and for distributed teams
• Connect project managers, teams and data across the organisation
• Integrate Microsoft Access and Excel to facilitate data sharing and accessibility

Contents of this class

Introduction and Overview

• Microsoft Project, Portfolio and programme standards and terms
• Microsoft Project Professional for complex and multiple projects
• Identifying essential project prerequisites

Establishing a Multiproject Framework

Operating within a shared environment

• Setting standards for Microsoft Project Professional
• Applying a consistent feature set throughout the organisation

Managing the multiproject environment

• Controlling calendars, views and fields
• Adopting a robust multiple-file management system
• Customising and deploying the Global Template with Organiser

Implementing Master Projects and Subprojects

Developing consolidated projects

• Compiling consolidated projects with embedding
• Utilising existing project plans

Building master and subprojects

• Defining project hierarchy by inserting subprojects into a master project
• Linking tasks across projects
• Applying best practices for master and subprojects

Scheduling Project Resources Using a Shared Pool

Creating a shared resource pool

• Selecting preferred resource types: named, generic and sets
• Grouping resources to establish management boundaries

Employing a shared pool to your advantage

• Identifying and resolving conflicts
• Viewing assignments across projects
• Resourcing projects based upon availability

Resolving resource over allocations

• Prioritising subprojects and tasks
• Levelling and smoothing subprojects and tasks using priorities

Tracking Progress Across Multiple Projects

Essential skills for tracking

• Meaningful metrics: measuring schedule, completeness and budget
• Baselining projects and subprojects

Selecting the right tracking methods

• Tracking by tasks, assignments and teams
• Evaluating the implications of different tracking methods

Maximising the information

• Analysing and evaluating progress
• Determining schedule slippage
• Making adjustments and taking corrective action
• Practical guidelines for tracking complex projects

Communicating with Project Teams

Developing a communication infrastructure

• Integrating with third-party applications
• Employing Outlook to improve communication with team members
• Facilitating updates from local or distributed team members
• Transferring data to Access and Excel

Disseminating information to non-Microsoft Project users

• Distributing data from multiple projects
• Reporting schedule and cost progress
• Customising views and reports

Project Management with Microsoft Project (Complex Projects) / MPR-PMC

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