Learning Microsoft Project 2019

Explore detailed explanations and examples to get up and running with the five phases of the project management lifecycle and integrate project management principles in a variety of projects

▶Book Description
Microsoft Project is one of the most popular project management tools for enterprises of all sizes thanks to its wide variety of features such as project scheduling, project budgeting, built-in templates, and reporting tools. Learning Microsoft Project 2019 will get you started with the basics and gradually guide you through the complete project life cycle.

Starting with an overview of Microsoft Project 2019 and a brief introduction to project management concepts, this book will take you through the different phases of project management – initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure. You will then learn how to identify and handle problems related to scheduling, costing, resourcing, and work allocation. Understand how to use dynamic reports to create powerful, automated reports and dashboards at the click of a button. This Microsoft Project book highlights the pitfalls of overallocation and demonstrates how to avoid and resolve these issues using a wide spectrum of tools, techniques, and best practices. Finally, you will focus on executing Agile projects efficiently and get to grips with using Kanban and Scrum features.

By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with Microsoft Project and have the skills you need to use it effectively in every stage of project management.

▶What You Will Learn
⦁ Create efficient project plans using Microsoft Project 2019
⦁ Get to grips with resolving complex issues related to time, budget, and resource allocation
⦁ Understand how to create automated dynamic reports
⦁ Identify and protect the critical path in your project and mitigate project risks
⦁ Become well-versed with executing Agile projects using MS Project
⦁ Understand how to create custom reports and make them available for future projects

▶Key Features
⦁ Explore various algorithms and the latest features of MS Project to organize and keep track of your projects
⦁ Understand Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to improve productivity
⦁ Apply real-world best practices and discover the tips, tricks, and pitfalls of schedule management

▶Who This Book Is For
If you use Microsoft Office and are looking to use MS Project to manage your projects efficiently, this book is for you. Project managers or anyone interested in project management will also find this book useful. Basic knowledge of Windows UI and MS Office products is required.


▶What this book covers
- Chapter 1, Project Management – the Essential Primer, explains the project management principles and concepts that are essential for this book with minimum fuss.

- Chapter 2, Fundamentals of Microsoft Project, introduces Microsoft Project through a simple, hands-on project. We start by making sense of the complex user interface.

- Chapter 3, Initiating projects with Microsoft Project, reviews the project plan schedule and examines the characteristics and components of a project schedule.

- Chapter 4, Underlying Concepts of Microsoft Project, explores the logic that makes Project work. This will demystify the automated behavior of Project.

- Chapter 5, Resource Management with Microsoft Project, explains how to manage the people and machinery required to execute our project. This is an important prerequisite to costing a project.

- Chapter 6, Work Breakdown Structure – the Single Critical Factor, concerns the most important project management process to succeed with Microsoft Project (WBS the Work Breakdown Structure!).

- Chapter 7, Tasks – under the Microscope, proceeds from a WBS-based task list to a well-designed project schedule. We will also learn how to import data, organize schedules, and a whole lot of special tasks, all with a new hands-on project.

- Chapter 8, Mastering Link Dependency and Constraints, creates schedules that are realistic for projecting ground situations through four classic types of task relationships. We also explore the flexibility of time in a schedule represented by date constraints.

- Chapter 9, Extended Customization – Tasks and Gantt Formatting, explores Project's tools that allow you to fine-tune the textual and graphical aspects of your schedule. Practically every parameter is customizable, as you will see, but you can get by without needing any customization most of the time.

- Chapter 10, Executing Agile Projects with MS Project, is the beginning of the execution phases of a project. We begin with a discussion of Agile and Kanban supported in Project.

- Chapter 11, Overallocation – the Bane of Project Managers, discusses overallocation of resources, which is the most common issue that is faced by users of Microsoft Project. You'll learn how to avoid, diagnose, and resolve overallocation using a plethora of tools and techniques.

- Chapter 12, Baselines – Techniques and Best Practices, is a deep dive into the baselining features of Project. You'll learn how to create, maintain, and analyze schedules with the help of baseline best practices.

- Chapter 13, Project Tracking Techniques, helps us learn to precisely track the status of your project while adapting to your own ground situations by using a wide spectrum of tools, techniques, and best practices.

- Chapter 14, Views, Tables, and Customization, helps us gain an advanced understanding of view architecture in Project. You'll learn which views are used when, as well as sort, filter, and group data. You will also learn how to create your own views.

- Chapter 15, Resource and Cost Management, is a deep exploration of Project's resourcing and costing techniques through a new hands-on project.

- Chapter 16, Critical Path Monitoring and Advanced Techniques, explains how to work with the foundational methodology used in Project; Critical Path Method (CPM). You'll learn techniques to shorten a project, advanced overallocation techniques, and strategic approaches to resolving scheduling issues.

- Chapter 17, Project Reports 101, discusses the many powerful predesigned reports, broad dashboards, and more than a dozen other analytical reports for export that are all shipped with Project out of the box.

- Chapter 18, Reviewing Projects and Creating Templates for Success, explains how to identify the most common error patterns within project schedules, use different tools to review projects, and create templates that will help you succeed with future projects.

- Chapter 19, Advanced Custom Reports and Templates, explains the logic of Project's reporting architecture to modify existing prebuilt reports and create new custom reports. You'll also learn how to share your customized entities (reports, views and so on) with the world.

- Chapter 20, Book Conclusion and Next Steps, is a final big-picture view of Microsoft Project applied to project management. We will tie up the project phases and process groups to everything that you have learned about Microsoft Project. Overall best practices, pitfalls, concepts, and techniques will be mapped to a project life cycle.