Looking for a Master Project Schedule Template

[J Schlueter]

Iam all about not reinventing the wheel. I have been asked to create a
"Master" or "Integrated" project schedule for a group of Enterprise level
projects. Alas, I have never done or seen such a thing.

Does anyone have a template that they can share?

 

[Rod Gill]

A master schedule is simply all individual projects inserted into a new,
blank project to create a master. As such a template does not exist.

In a new project select Insert, project then select one of your projects.
Repeat for all other projects.

CAUTION: once you have inserted projects then saved the master file, do NOT
rename, move or over-write the sub-project files as doing so will eventually
lead to file corruption.

By default when you insert a project it is linked so all changes in the
sub-project are reflected in the master and vice versa.

I prefer unchecking the link option in Insert, Project dialog so project
copies all data into the master. This creates a snapshot (no updates) and
consolidates all resources. If you have a lot of projects, then record a
macro of you creating the master and re-run it each week.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

NEW!! Project VBA Book, for details visit: http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[CB]

J Schlueter,
I have been involved in this at a couple of companies. What this basically
boils down to is going through the lifecycle process in your particular
company. I involved members from all functional areas (ex...Software Eng,
Systems Eng...etc) We would go through the lifecycle development and fill in
all the "Required steps" for any project. These would be required by either
internal/external processes and procedures. Your phases may be Preliminary
design, detail design...etc. Each phase should end with a major
milestone...Preliminary Design review...etc. One suggestion to keep this
clean is to use Inputs, Tasks, and outputs for each phase. This makes
tracking dependencies a lot easier.

As for Master Schedule, this can be viewed in several ways. Some mgrs see
the master as the all inclusive schedule, regardless if you are using
subproject files or not. If you are using Ver 2003, I strongly recommend
that you do not use the subproject file approach. If you are using a prior
version this approach should be fine.

You could create a lifecycle schedule template for each functional area and
insert into a Project master file.

Good Luck to You.
CB