M.S. Project: Management Skills for Planning
and Controlling Projects
Assabet After Dark
PERT Analysis (not covered in the
book)
Program, Evaluation, and Review technique,
or PERT
 For estimating task durations
 People who have been project managers for
awhile may refer to the Network Diagram
view in Project as PERT. It used to be the
“PERT chart.”

PERT Analysis
The formula:
 (Optimistic Estimate + 4 Times Most Likely
Estimate + Pessimistic Estimate) / 6
 (50 + (4)100 + 150)/6
= 600/6
= 100
100 is the weighted average estimate
 So, that could be days, hours – your choice

PERT Analysis in MS Project






From the Microsoft Project Help:
On the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then
click PERT Analysis.
On the PERT Analysis toolbar, click PERT Entry
Sheet .
For each task, enter the optimistic, expected, and
pessimistic durations in the Optimistic Dur.,
Expected Dur., and Pessimistic Dur. fields,
respectively.
If a task's duration is not expected to vary, enter
the expected duration in all three fields.
Click Calculate PERT to calculate the estimated
durations.
PERT Analysis in MS Project




Microsoft Office Project estimates a single project
duration based on a weighted average of the
three duration values for each task.
To view the optimistic, expected, and pessimistic
durations, on the PERT Analysis toolbar, click
Optimistic Gantt
, Expected Gantt
, or
Pessimistic Gantt
.
To view the end dates of the three resulting
schedules, on the Tools menu, click Options.
Click the View tab, and then select the Show
project summary task box.
PERT Analysis in MS Project

If you see #### symbols
Make those two columns wider
 So, it added the project summary row:

PERT Analysis in MS Project
You can change the weights assigned to the
optimistic, pessimistic, and expected fields.
Click on the scale symbol:
 This will come up:

PERT Analysis in MS Project
So, now when you go to the View menu >
Gantt Chart, it defaults to showing you the
“expected” Gantt chart.
 Try going to View > Gantt chart
 Click on the button on the PERT toolbar for
Optimistic Gantt
 Then go back to View > Gantt Chart
 Try it also with the Pessimistic Gantt and
Expected Gantt buttons.

PERT and the PMBOK
“PERT” is no longer in the Project
Management Body of Knowledge
 The concept is, though. There’s
“Parametric Estimating,” and “Three-Point
Estimates.” The three points are “most
likely,” “optimistic,” and “pessimistic.”

Chapter 5
After completing this lesson, you
will be able to:
•
•
•
•
•
Change the formatting of items in the Gantt
Chart view
Draw a text box on the chart portion of the
Gantt Chart view.
Display additional information about your
resources in a text field.
Create a custom table.
Create a custom view.
Formatting the Gantt Chart
Views and Reports
Views let you substantially format before
you print.
To format bar styles on the Gantt Chart
On the Format menu, click Bar Styles.
 In the Bar Styles dialog box, select the options
you want.

Formatting the Gantt Chart

Also, three ways:
Format
 Format
 Format
Format

menu > Bar Styles
menu > Gantt Chart Wizard
an individual bar – double-click on it, or
menu > Bar
Creating a custom Gantt Chart view
Widening a column
 There’s a few ways:

Double-click on its heading, then choose “Best
Fit.”
 Double-click on the right edge of a column – it
should resize automatically.
 Drag the divider bar

Creating a custom Gantt chart view
Also, an important thing, where the divider
bar is, between the table portion of your
Gantt chart view, and the bar part of your
Gantt chart view, affects how the Gantt
chart prints.
 Try going to the File menu > Print >
Preview.

Creating a custom Gantt chart view

This is the thing I mean:
Creating a custom Gantt Chart view
Open Wingtip Toys Commercial 5a
 There’s an example that starts on page 99
 Let’s follow it up to page 100, through step
6

Drawing on a Gantt Chart
To draw text boxes or other objects on a
Gantt Chart
On the View menu, click Toolbars, and then
select Drawing.
 On the Drawing toolbar, click the object or
shape you want to draw, and then draw it on
the chart portion of a Gantt Chart view.
 To set options for the drawn object (for
example to link it to one end of a Gantt bar),
double-click the object’s border, and choose the
options you want in the Format Drawing dialog
box.

Formatting text in a view

If we use the font controls on the toolbar
directly, we can format text directly. It’ll
only take effect in the view that we’re
looking at.
Create a copy of the Gantt chart
view
It’s a good idea to leave the default Gantt
chart view as is, and to only change a copy
of it
 If you don’t like what you’d changed, you
won’t have to tinker to undo it.
 Go to the View menu > More Views.
 Copy button.

Displaying a Text Field
To display a text field






On the View bar, click Resource Sheet.
Click the column heading to the right of where you want
to insert a text field.
On the Insert menu, click Column.
In the Field Name list in the Column Definition dialog
box, click one of the text fields named Text1 through
Text30.
In the Title box, type the name you want to appear in
the column heading for this field.
Enter whatever other options you want, and then click
OK.
In Chapter 5, page 108
We had Wingtip Toys Commercial 5 open.
 Formatting text in a view


The benefit of styles versus formatting text
directly
 Use
styles – Format menu > Text Styles
 It’s like paragraphs styles in Word
 If you format text directly, you’ll have to manually
change it
The “Item to change” drop-down menu in that
Text Styles dialog box gives you categories of
things that you can format.
 Changes you make only affect that view.

Formatting and Printing Reports
Reports – really just for printing – not data
entry.
 Reports menu > Reports.
 Recall that the Reports menu is new as of
Project 2007. The same choice used to be
under the View menu > Reports.
 Let’s just look at any and all of them, and
play with Print Preview.
 The Who Does What When report (under
Assignments) should be several pages long.

Formatting and Printing Reports
Third-party plug-ins for printing to PDF
 Kinkos
 The next exercise in the book shows you
how to insert a picture into a report header.
 So, Reports menu > Reports > Assignments
> Select > Who Does What When > Select
> Page Setup > Header > the Insert Picture
button.

Inserting a Picture into a Report
Inserting a Picture into a Report
Not all of the
reports let you get
to the Header,
Footer, Legend and
View tabs of the
Page Setup dialog
box.
 Project Summary
(at least as of MS
Project 2003):

Chapter 6, Tracking Progress on
Tasks
The best laid plans of Mice and Men….
 Shift from project planning to project
tracking.
 Entering your ‘actuals.’ What’s actually
happening.
 Actual start and finish dates, actual costs,
your new projected actual finish date.
 What level of tracking detail do you need?
That’s up to you.

Chapter 6, Tracking Progress on
Tasks

Different levels of project details:
Record project work exactly as scheduled.
 Use % complete, like 25, 50, or an exact #.
 Record actual start, actual finish, actual work,
and actual remaining durations.
 Covered in a different chapter – record actual
work values by day, week, etc.


The level of detail you need may depend on
the tasks.
Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start,
Late Finish






Project will calculate these, based on your
dependencies.
Early Start – ES, the earliest the task would begin
Late Start – LS, the latest that the task would
begin
Early Finish – EF, the earliest that the task would
finish
Late Finish – LF, the latest that the task would
finish
How would you determine these? A forward pass
and a backwards pass….
6-13
Activity-on-Node Network Forward Pass
Reproduced from the text Project Mangement, the Managerial Process, Gray and
Larson.
6-15
Activity-on-Node Network Backward Pass
Reproduced from the text Project Mangement, the Managerial Process, Gray and
Larson.
Saving a Project Baseline

Here’s an example…cost estimates for Sophia
Technology
Baseline
Most current
(after project
change)
Saving a Project Baseline
After you’ve entered in all of your projected
tasks, start dates, finish dates, resources,
and costs, take a snapshot for future
comparison, a baseline.
 It lets you see how far off track your project
has wandered.
 It saves the following fields:

Task
 Resource
 Assignment
 Timephased fields – list on page 123

Saving a Project Baseline
Open Wingtip Toys Commercial 6a and save
it as Wingtip Toys Commercial 6
 There’s a short exercise, for essentially
opening the Variance table.
 View menu > More Views > Task Sheet >
Apply button. Back to the View menu >
Table: Entry > Variance.
 Right now the Start, Finish, Baseline Start
and Baseline Finish columns don’t show a
variance.

Tracking a project as scheduled
If all is well, everything’s exactly on
schedule
 Use the “Update Project” tool.

View menu > Gantt Chart
 Tools menu > Tracking > Update Project
 Select “Update work as complete through”
 Choose 1/16/08

 That
date is your status date – MS Project will treat
all dates before it as actual dates, and set the %
complete values for them.
Tracking a project as scheduled
So, all tasks that are scheduled to start after
that date will have a 0% complete status.
 If the scheduled finish date is before the
date you enter, it’s made 100% complete.
 If it’s scheduled to be already started, but
the finish date is after the date you enter,
Project will calculate the percent complete
for you. That’s with the radio button
selected for “Set 0%-100% complete.”

Tracking a project as scheduled

If you want it to set the % complete at 0
until the task is done, choose the radio
button for:
“Set 0% or 100% complete only”
Tracking a project as scheduled

You’ll see changes to your Gantt chart:
Progress bars
checkmarks
Entering a task’s completion
percentage
Now, that Tools > Tracking > Update
Project choice doesn’t give you a lot of
control.
 There’s also Tools > Tracking > Update
Tasks. You can update individual tasks,
which gives you finer control.
 The tracking toolbar:

View menu > Toolbars > Tracking
 Entering a completion date other than 0 makes
the scheduled start date the actual start date.

Tracking Toolbar
Handy:
 Tools menu > Toolbars > Tracking

Record that a task is 0, 25, 50, 75,
or 100% complete with the click of
a button.
 This button opens the Update Tasks
dialog box:

Entering a task’s completion
percentage

Or, under Tools > Tracking > Update Tasks,
you can enter a percentage to record the
task’s completion:
Entering a task’s completion
percentage

So, if a task’s 4 days long, and you enter
50% completion, 2 days of it are complete –
have actual duration, and it has 2 days of
remaining duration.

If you have an actual start date, it’s better to
enter it than to use percentages.
Small exercise, pages 127-128
 A few things we’ll see:

Entering a task’s completion
percentage
Note the progress bar shows 50% complete
 If you hold the mouse over the progress
bar, you’ll get that yellow screentip.

A tip about non-working time

If you want to show non-working time in
front of your Gantt bars, go to:
Format menu > Timescale
Choose the Non-working Time tab
Click “In front of task bars.
Entering actual values for tasks
This a more accurate way of tracking tasks.
 Record what actually happened. Actual
start, finish, duration values.
 This behaves exactly like you’d expect.

Entering an actual start date moves the
scheduled start date to the actual start date.
 Same with the finish date.
 When you enter an actual work value, Project
recalculates the remaining work value.

Entering actual values for tasks

Page 129:
“When you enter a task’s actual duration, if it is
less than the scheduled duration, Project subtracts
the actual duration from the scheduled duration to
determine the remaining duration.”
So, it thinks the task is partially complete.


If you enter a duration that’s equal to the
scheduled duration, it’s marked as 100%
complete.
If the duration you enter is longer, Project adjusts
the scheduled duration accordingly.
Entering actual values for tasks

You can enter these things under the View
menu > Table: Entry > Work
That’s “scheduled”
work
That’s “actual”
work
Entering actual values for tasks

Exercise, starting on page 129

Now, project makes this look like nothing
more than data entry.
Would you always know when a task is 50%
complete? Projects that are about discovering
new things, like the cure for cancer. Research
and development, for example.
 Reporting progress is always a bit of guesswork.
It has a risk of inaccuracy.

Estimating….
The book talks about how the elapsed
portion of a task might not actually be that
% of the work that needs to get done. You
can backload tasks. We’ll see that in
chapter 8, “applying contours to
assignments.”
 Your team may have a different opinion as
to how far along the task is. They might
not know all that you know, or vice versa.
 Mitigate with good communication.

Miscellaneous – printing to a PDF
Now, I’d mentioned before that if you want
to print a Gantt chart or a Network Diagram
on, let’s say, one 2’ x 3’ piece of paper,
either your computer will have to be
connected to a large format printer or
plotter, or you’ll need more than just Project
gives you.
 If you have Adobe Acrobat installed, then
you will have tools inside Project for
generating PDFs.

Miscellaneous – printing to a PDF

There’s a toolbar, when you have Acrobat
installed, as well as an “Adobe PDF” dropdown menu:
Miscellaneous – printing to a PDF




With Acrobat installed, under the File menu >
Print, you can choose PDF as an option.
I’ve found in the past, if I try to generate a PDF
from Project that’s wider than 36 inches, part of it
is cut off, and some of the text in the Network
Diagram is missing. Setting the DPI down to
72dpi resolved it.
If you’ve got Acrobat, here’s Microsoft’s article on
generating a PDF from Project:
http://office.microsoft.com/enus/project/HA012276471033.aspx?pid=CH100666
241033
Miscellaneous – printing to a PDF
They’ve also got a list of third-party plugins:
 http://office.microsoft.com/enus/marketplace/CE101703961033.aspx
