Best practice in MS Project

[Peters]

Hello,

after understanding how MS Project works I have found that the next
challenge is to choose the right ways of doing the planning. I would so much
appreciate a book or something that would give good examples on plans, good
and bad that would give you a guide on how to design them.

Areas that I would like to see discussed by someone with a lot more
experience are:
....
Choosing a Project Life Cycle based WBS rather than a "standard" WBS seems
to work better sometimes.

What levels of details are appropriate at different situations?

The good and bad of making a summary task a predecessor.

Best way to use MS Project for Earned Value.

How to make the plan easy to present (the Gantt view can get quite ugly
sometimes).

Appropriate WBS structure when having development that covers SW, Mechanics
Electronics and different systems.
....

I am not expecting someone to answer my particular questions, but rather say
if there is a good source for answers to questions like these, or should one
continue using trial and error?

Thanks,
Peter S

 

[Peters]

Trevor, I am very aware of the rich content of this newsgroup, and I use it a
lot. From you answer I am guessing I should give up hoping there is a good
book on the topic. All the MS Project books I have read are completely
technical. Nothing on smart ways of doing things practically. You build your
perfect plan with 400+ tasks which may be technically correct but useless
because it is not practical.

I rarely run in to "technical" or software problems nowadays, but still
sometimes I feel my plan could work better if I had more guidance.

Most questions you will find answers to on this site, I agree, but
sometimes you just do not know you have a problem or what question to ask. I
would definetely purchase a practical book on the topic. Unfortunately, I
will not write it myself, since I am busy writing another book.

Peter

 

[Jim Aksel]

There is a wealth of information on the internet regarding scheduing and
project management. You may want to try www.pmi.org. (Project Management
Institute).
There is also the American Management Association.

Additionally, there are "trade groups" in every major industry from farming,
oil, aerospace, construction that all relate to Project Management in their
own fields. However, none of these address the topic as specifically related
to MS Project (or any of its competitors for that matter).

I think the main reason there is no outstanding book on the Project
Management trade using MS Project is probably because people are looking for
something with industry specific examples for their line of work.

I am toying with the idea, I am in aerospace, but just don't seem to hear an
uproar begging for it to be written. Instead, most of the larger companies
in each industry segement tend to "home grow" their own processes and
techniques.

That said, some good books on the topic are:
Quentin Flemming on Earned Value Management
Harold Kerzner on Project Management

For specifics to MS Project, I recommend
Dale Howard (et al) The Ultimate Learning Guide to MS Project
Rod Gill VBA Programming with MS Project

Other than that, I have a stack of resources I used based on aerospace and
defense that have all types of ideas -- none of which are MS Project
specific. They really can't be because customers cannot generally drive the
tools used by their suppliers although it does happen.

Keep posting here, you will find the discussion lively -- usually technical
"how to" in nature.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Peters]

There is a wealth of information on the internet regarding scheduing and
project management. You may want to try www.pmi.org. (Project Management
Institute).
There is also the American Management Association.

I know there´s a lot of information (I am certified PMP).

Additionally, there are "trade groups" in every major industry from farming,
oil, aerospace, construction that all relate to Project Management in their
own fields. However, none of these address the topic as specifically related
to MS Project (or any of its competitors for that matter).

Well, that's the thing. There is a thousand ways to do the plan the same
project in MS Project and some ways will result in better plans, some in
really bad.

I think the main reason there is no outstanding book on the Project
Management trade using MS Project is probably because people are looking for
something with industry specific examples for their line of work.

Maybe, I seem to think that there could be a general book. If it is possible
to write the PMBOK, then one should be able to write a general book on MS
Project.

I am toying with the idea, I am in aerospace, but just don't seem to hear an
uproar begging for it to be written. Instead, most of the larger companies
in each industry segement tend to "home grow" their own processes and
techniques.

That said, some good books on the topic are:
Quentin Flemming on Earned Value Management
Harold Kerzner on Project Management

For specifics to MS Project, I recommend
Dale Howard (et al) The Ultimate Learning Guide to MS Project
Rod Gill VBA Programming with MS Project

Read them all but the The Ultimate Learning Guide, but I'll have a look at
it.

Other than that, I have a stack of resources I used based on aerospace and
defense that have all types of ideas -- none of which are MS Project
specific. They really can't be because customers cannot generally drive the
tools used by their suppliers although it does happen.

Keep posting here, you will find the discussion lively -- usually technical
"how to" in nature.

I know, this is truely a good forum!

Thanks for your book suggestions!

Peter

 

[Peters]

I have an urge to write the book myself, but I hesitate to claim to know
enough to do it.
Also, there may not be enough in it to warran the whole book.
Enough best practices for a project planning survival kit can boiled down to
a handful of rules of thumb.

It would definitely be possible to write a whole book, and I encourage you
to do it! It should start with dealing with different ways of doing planning
from a first look at a project, maybe with top-bottom estimates and
continuing into more detailed planning, control techniques, and why not on
the best ways of presenting information from MS Project?! And best practice
on earned value (using %physical complete or %work complete, when and why,
pros and cons).

I would happily give you more ideas on where I think there are many ways of
doing the same thing!

Some of them should just be followed even if not completely understood, then
understanding will come.
Just taking one of your points, Summaries should not be used as either
Predecessors or Successors because, well, they just aint real Tasks, and
only real Tasks can be Predecessors or Successors.

Well, my version of MS Project gladly lets you use a summary task as a
predecessor. And there are occasions when I think using that technique works
well. If you have a phased development process with clear reviews and a group
of parallell activities that need to be completet to continue, using a
summary task for those tasks as predecessor is a good way of making the plan
easier to read (with fewer relationsships)? Why should I not?

Thanks,
Peter (given up looking at Amazon for the perfect MS Project book ;-)