PM Training 12 said:
Can anyone point us to a set of 'best practices' for a very large, complex,
and multiyear project?
Some of the questions are...
How big should sub-projects be? What is the recommended maximum length for
tasks ? How do you effectively manage many subprojects? What standards should
be in place?
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
PM Training 12,
In my experience the following has worked well:
a. Any single Project file that has more than a few thousand tasks will
quickly become difficult to manage - keep it reasonable and break up the
work in a logical manner. Project allows a mind-boggling 1 million tasks
per file - in my opinion that is totally ridiculous.
b. A master file (master with inserted subprojects) of more than 10K
tasks is difficult to manage
c. Task duration is a compromise. If task detail is too fine, the plan
becomes overly complex and more time is spent maintaining the plan than
working it. If task detail is too course, the plan doesn't show what is
really happening and becomes pretty worthless. The plans I worked with
were normally a few years in duration. We laid out the near term
(approx. 6 months) as detail (i.e. tasks of a week to a couple months
duration). Longer term effort was laid out as planning packages -
general task description with a cost (to provide a scope for the budget)
but no working detail. When planning packages entered the near term,
they were then planned out in detail.
d. "Standards" vary from company to company but it is important to train
all users both in how to use Project as an application and how Project
should be used within company guidelines. For example, maybe your
company has a formal earned value system that requires special attention
to how project plans are developed and statused. Consistency among users
is very important - develop a set of rules, train the users, and follow
the rules.
I don't know if I would call these "best practices" but hopefully it
gives some guidelines.
John
Project MVP
