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Keep projects on track


Microsoft Project 2019 is a powerhouse project management, portfolio management, and resource management tool. Whether you're a full-time project manager or manage projects as part of a larger set of duties, Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies will get you thinking and operating at the level of a project management guru.


Written by a noted project management pro, this book covers the ins and outs of Microsoft Project. Throughout the book, you'll find project management best practices and tips for keeping any project on schedule and under budget.





Reference the full set of Microsoft Project 2019 features

Learn to think like a project management professional

Get into the nuts and bolts of Project for better productivity

Create a task schedule that keeps a project moving

Identify the golden rules that keep projects on track



With Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies, you'll soon get a grip on all the powerful features of this popular project management software. No matter your level of training or experience, this book will show you how improve your project management with Microsoft Project 2019.

Microsoft Project 2019 For Dummies

Introduction 1





About This Book 1





Foolish Assumptions 2





Icons Used in This Book 3





Beyond the Book 3





Where to Go from Here 3





Part 1: Getting Started with Project 2019 5





Chapter 1: Project Management, Project 2019, and You 7





Introducing Project Management 7





Defining project manager 8





Identifying what a project manager does 9





Introducing Project 2019 10





Getting to Know You 11





Navigating Ribbon tabs and the Ribbon 13





Displaying more tools 17





Tell Me What You Want to Do 18





Chapter 2: Starting the Project 19





Creating the Project Charter 20





Introducing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 22





Organizing the Work 23





Starting the Project 24





Entering project information 25





Weighing manual scheduling versus automatic scheduling 27





Entering the WBS 29





Entering tasks 30





Importing tasks from Outlook 32





Inserting hyperlinks 34





Inserting one project into another 35





Promoting and demoting: The outdent-and-indent shuffle 36





Saving the Project 37





Chapter 3: Becoming a Task Master 39





Creating Summary Tasks and Subtasks 39





How many levels can you go? 41





The project summary task 41





Moving Tasks Up, Down, and All Around 43





Moving tasks with the drag-and-drop method 43





Moving tasks with the cut-and-paste method 44





Now You See It, Now You Don't: Collapsing and Expanding the Task Outline 44





Showing Up Again and Again: Recurring Tasks 47





Setting Milestones 48





Deleting Tasks and Using Inactive Tasks 49





Making a Task Note 50





Chapter 4: The Codependent Nature of Tasks 53





How Tasks Become Dependent 54





Dependent tasks: Which comes first? 54





Dependency types 55





Allowing for Murphy's Law: Lag and lead time 58





Setting the Dependency Connection 59





Adding the dependency link 59





Words to the wise 61





Understanding that things change: Deleting dependencies 62





Chapter 5: Estimating Task Time 65





You're in It for the Duration 66





Tasks come in all flavors: Identifying task types 66





Effort-driven tasks: 1 + 1 = 1/2 69





Estimating Effort and Duration 70





Estimating techniques 71





Setting the task duration 72





Controlling Timing with Constraints 74





Understanding how constraints work 74





Establishing constraints 75





Setting a deadline 76





Starting and Pausing Tasks 77





Entering the task's start date 77





Taking a break: Splitting tasks 78





Chapter 6: Check Out This View! 81





A Project with a View 81





Navigating tabs and views 82





Scrolling around 84





Reaching a specific spot in your plan 85





More Detail about Views 86





Home base: Gantt Chart view 86





Resourceful views: Resource Sheet and Team Planner 87





Getting your timing down with the Timeline 88





Going with the flow: Network Diagram view 89





Calling up Calendar view 90





Customizing Views 91





Working with view panes 91





Modifying Network Diagram view 96





Resetting the view 100





Part 2: Managing Resources 101





Chapter 7: Creating Resources 103





Resources: People, Places, and Things 103





Becoming Resource-Full 104





Understanding resources 104





Resource types: Work, material, and cost 105





How resources affect task timing 105





Estimating resource requirements 107





The Birth of a Resource 107





Creating one resource at a time 108





Identifying resources before you know their names 109





Many hands make light work 110





Managing Resource Availability 111





Estimating and setting availability 112





When a resource comes and goes 113





Sharing Resources 114





Skimming from resource pools 114





Importing resources from Outlook 116





Chapter 8: Working with Calendars 119





Mastering Base, Project, Resource, and Task Calendars 120





Setting the base calendar for a project 120





Understanding the four calendar types 120





How calendars work 121





How one calendar relates to another 121





Scheduling with Calendar Options and Working Times 122





Setting calendar options 123





Setting exceptions to working times 124





Working with Task Calendars and Resource Calendars 126





Setting resource calendars 127





Making the change to a resource's calendar 128





Creating a Custom Calendar Template 130





Sharing Copies of Calendars 132





Chapter 9: Assigning Resources 135





Finding the Right Resource 135





Needed: One good resource willing to work 136





Custom fields: It's a skill 137





Making a Useful Assignation 138





Determining material and cost-resource units 138





Making assignments 139





Shaping the contour that's right for you 142





Benefitting from a Helpful Planner 144





Chapter 10: Determining a Project's Cost 147





How Do Costs Accrue? 148





Adding up the costs 148





When will this hit the bottom line? 149





Specifying Cost Information in the Project 150





You can't avoid fixed costs 150





Entering hourly, overtime, and cost-per-use rates 152





Assigning material resources 153





How Your Settings Affect Your Costs 155





Part 3: Before You Baseline 157





Chapter 11: Fine-Tuning Your Plan 159





Everything Filters to the Bottom Line 159





Setting predesigned filters 160





Putting AutoFilter to work 161





Creating do-it-yourself filters 163





Gathering Information in Groups 165





Applying predefined groups 166





Devising your own groups 166





Figuring Out What's Driving the Project 169





Inspecting tasks 169





Handling task warnings and suggestions 170





Chapter 12: Negotiating Project Constraints 173





It's about Time 174





Applying contingency reserve 174





Completing a task in less time 175





Getting What You Want for Less 178





The Resource Recourse 179





Checking resource availability 179





Deleting or modifying a resource assignment 180





Beating overallocations with quick-and-dirty rescheduling 181





Finding help 182





Leveling resources 182





Rescheduling the Project 186





Chapter 13: Making the Project Look Good 187





Looking Good! 188





Formatting the Gantt Chart 188





Formatting taskbars 188





Zeroing in on critical issues 191





Restyling the Gantt chart 192





Formatting Task Boxes 193





Adjusting the Layout 195





Modifying Gridlines 197





Recognizing When a Picture Can Say It All 199





Creating a Custom Text Field 200





Chapter 14: It All Begins with a Baseline 205





All about Baselines 205





Saving a baseline 206





Saving more than one baseline 207





Clearing and resetting a baseline 209





In the Interim 210





Saving an interim plan 211





Clearing and resetting an interim plan 212





Part 4: Staying on Track 213





Chapter 15: On the Right Track 215





Developing a Communications Management Plan 216





Gathering data 216





Applying a tracking method 217





Using the tracking tools 218





For everything, there's a view 219





Tracking Work for the Record 220





Specifying the status date 221





Remaining on track 222





Determining the percent complete 222





Recording start and finish information 223





Knowing what to do when John works three hours and Mary works ten 224





Uh-oh - we're in overtime 226





Specifying remaining durations for auto-scheduled tasks 227





Entering fixed-cost updates 228





Moving a Task 229





Update Project: Sweeping Changes 230





Tracking Materials 232





Tracking More Than One: Consolidated Projects 233





Consolidating projects 233





Updating consolidated projects 235





Chapter 16: Project Views: Observing Progress 237





Seeing Where Tasks Stand 238





Baseline versus actual progress 238





Lines of progress 238





Delving into the Detail 241





Tracking Progress Using Earned Value Management 244





Calculating Behind the Scenes 246





Earned-value options 246





An abundance of critical paths 247





Chapter 17: You're Behind - Now What? 249





Using Project with Risk and Issue Logs 250





Printing interim plans and baselines 250





Printing task notes 251





What-If Scenarios 253





Sorting tasks 253





Filtering 254





Examining the critical path 255





Using resource leveling (again) 257





Determining which factors are driving the timing of a task 258





How Adding People or Time Affects the Project 259





Hurrying up and making modifications 259





Throwing resources at the problem 259





Shifting dependencies and task timing 261





When All Else Fails 262





Taking the time you need 263





Finding ways to cut corners 263





Chapter 18: Spreading the News: Reporting 265





Generating Standard Reports 266





What's available 266





Overviewing the dashboard reports 267





Creating New Reports 268





Gaining a new perspective on data with visual reports 270





Creating a visual report 270





Fine-Tuning a Report 271





Dragging, dropping, and sizing 272





Looking good! 273





Spiffing Things Up 274





Call the Printer! 277





Working with Page Setup 277





Getting a preview 282





Printing, at last! 283





Working on the Timeline 283





Adding tasks to the Timeline 284





Customizing the Timeline 285





Copying the Timeline 286





Chapter 19: Getting Better All the Time 287





Reviewing the Project 288





Learning from your mistakes 288





Debriefing the team 290





Comparing Versions of a Project 291





Building on Success 293





Creating a template 293





Mastering the Organizer 294





Part 5: The Part of Tens 297





Chapter 20: Ten Golden Rules of Project Management 299





Roll with It 299





Put Your Ducks in a Row 300





Expect the Unexpected 301





Don't Put Off until Tomorrow 302





Delegate, Delegate, Delegate 302





Document It 303





Keep the Team in the Loop 303





Measure Success 304





Maintain a Flexible Strategy 305





Learn from Your Mistakes 305





Chapter 21: Ten Cool Shortcuts in Project 2019 307





Task Information 307





Resource Information 308





Frequently Used Functions 309





Subtasks 310





Quick Selections 310





Fill Down 310





Navigation 310





Hours to Years 311





Timeline Shortcuts 311





Quick Undo and Repeat 312





Appendix: glossary 313





Index 321