MS Project 2016 is a Project Portfolio Management solution for enterprises. It offers a wide range of capabilities, including individual Project and Program Management, to selecting and managing a complete portfolio, projects, and operations, with the goal to achieve an organization’s strategic goals, vision, and to provide an organization with a sustainable competitive edge.
MS Project 2016 can easily be adopted and institutionalized by Organisation’s Project Management strategy framework to manage projects, programs, and portfolios within the organisation. This is regardless of the organization’s current Project Management Maturity Level (PMM). This is a transformation program, but it is a good place to start using it to manage individual projects. The system can then be used to manage portfolio management by gradually creating and adapting support systems.
Let’s see how a project manager can use MS Project 2016 Standard or Professional to manage a standalone project. It is not a substitute for planning, estimations, tracking, and decision making. These core activities must be performed by the project manager. It will make the job of the Project manager much easier.
A dynamic schedule model is built using project information from the project manager using the critical pathway (CPM) method.
Notify your project manager of scheduling conflicts and offer suggestions for resolving them.
Tracking progress based upon information provided by project manager, alerting him about potential future problems and offering solutions.
Rich performance reporting capabilities – Both pre-canned and customized reports
Allowing project managers to try different scenarios to find the best solution for a given situation.
MS Project 2016 will allow project managers to stay in control of their projects, be more productive and focus on value-added activities such as environment scanning, risk management, exploiting potential, stakeholder engagement, etc. This will help build a positive image for the project manager and project among all stakeholders.
MS Project 2016 will give Project Managers the ability to work at a micro level.
Create a Baselined Schedule. Create and maintain WBS
Specify the duration of the task
Specify the task dependencies, constraints, and deadline
Specify the calendars that will be used to schedule specific tasks, projects, and resources
Please specify the task type, i.e. MSP can help you schedule it by specifying the type of task: Fixed Duration, Fixed Units, or Fixed Work.
Indicate whether a task is an effort to assist MSP in adjusting the schedule when adding or subtracting resources.
Define the resources and their rates, and assign resources to the tasks.
Budget and task costs
Examine the critical path to optimize the schedule. You can explore options such as crashing, fast-tracking and resource leveling.
The approved schedule can be used as a baseline. MS Project allows you to store 11 baselines.
Tracking progress against a baseline
Perform an Earned Value Analysis.
Try out different options to get the project under control.
Information sharing
MS Project 2016 allows you to create visual reports in Excel or MS Visio.
Use email, PowerPoint, Excel, or other means to share the information.
MS Project offers a Timeline view that provides a snapshot of the project. This view is especially useful for senior managers.
As you can see, MS Project 2016 touches all knowledge areas in PMBOK in some way or another.
You can also visit our blog, What are the benefits to MS Project 2016?
It’s time to get started with MS Project 2016!
You can email us anytime for any clarifications or guidance with regards to the MS Project Traning at [email protected]