New Project Best Practices

Now that we’ve reviewed the key fundamentals and need-to-know features of Project, let’s run down the best practices for setting up a new file. Many of the frustrations experienced by new Project users originate from the start in part because they do not build their schedule file with these practices in mind. By following this approach, you can build a schedule file that allows for “what-if” analysis, a file that becomes a useful management tool throughout the project. In addition, these practices are consistent with the schedule development process we covered in Chapters 6–8. Here are my recommendations for starting a new project:

• Set Project Start Date— Control the date Project uses as the beginning date for your schedule by setting the Project Start Date. This is done in the Project, Project Information dialog shown in Figure 23.6.

  Figure 23.6. Dialog used to set Project Start Date.

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• Set Project Summary Task (Row Zero)— Go to Tools, Options, View, and in the Outline options area, select the Show Project Summary task checkbox. With this set, Project adds a row zero to the top of your schedule that summarizes all your project information. This is a tremendous timesaver for identifying the planned finish date and the total work effort.

• Review Default Settings— There are a handful of default settings under Tools, Options that can be troublesome if you’re not aware of what is going on (see Figure 23.7).

  Figure 23.7. Use Tools, Options dialog to review settings.

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  • Autolink tasks— On the Schedule tab, clear the Autolink on inserted or moved tasks checkbox, if you do not want Project to automatically create predecessor links (dependencies) between tasks as you enter them. I turn this off (uncheck, clear), because I want to purposefully set the logical dependencies between my tasks.

  • Tasks honoring constraint dates— On the Schedule tab, clear the “Tasks will always honor their constraint dates” checkbox. This causes a warning indicator to constantly appear in the Indicators column whenever the given task is violating a constraint date. Otherwise, you only receive an initial warning. You want to be sure you are aware of these constraint violations.

  • Multiple critical paths— Most users only want to deal with one critical path at a time. You want Project to clearly identify the single critical path driving your planned completion date. To be sure this happens, go to Calculation tab and clear the Calculate multiple critical paths checkbox.

    Tip

    To help ensure that any future project file you create has the desired default setting, select the Set as Default button on the General tab before closing the Tools, Options dialog.

    
    

  • Adding new resources— This is personal preference. By default, Project automatically adds resources for you as you assign them to tasks. This sounds great, and it can be a timesaver. However, it does not perform any validation on your resource entries. You can end up with a lot of typos as resources and a lot of multiple references to the same resource. Both are problematic. On the other hand, if you turn off this feature, you will need to enter your resources in advance (on the Resource Sheet) before you can assign them to tasks. If you want to turn off this, go to the General tab and clear the Automatically add new resources and tasks checkbox.

• Set Project Calendar— Go to Tools, Change Working Time to modify the standard calendar that should be used for the project.

• Set Header and Footer— To better prepare your Project file for reporting and distribution, set up the header and the footer sections. I like to add the project name to the header section, and I like to add the following to the footer section: filename, baseline version number, and page x of y. You can access the header and footer under File, Page Setup.

• Enter and Organize Tasks— If we followed our schedule development process, we’ll enter the tasks using our deliverable-based WBS. Besides the reminder to not enter a Start or Finish date for the task, I strongly encourage use of the Notes field to capture any assumptions that will be important to reference. In addition, it is easy to see these notes, because Project includes a notes icon in the Indicators column, and it automatically displays the note when you put your cursor over the icon.

• Set milestones— If there are any milestone or fixed target dates that must be honored, enter those dates for the respective tasks. You may want to change the constraint to Must Start On or Must Finish On. To the extent possible, I would avoid doing this on the initial planning iterations.

• Set external dependencies— I would also enter placeholder tasks for any external dependencies that your project has, and I would establish a link (predecessor relationship) to those tasks. This way, you can clearly communicate these dependencies so that they are not just assumptions that get lost in other planning documents. And if the completion dates for those dependencies change, you can clearly identify the impact to your project.

  Tip

  After you setup a project file (“*.mpp”) with the custom columns, formats, and settings you like, you can use this file as a template for future projects.

  
  

• Capture Logical Dependencies— After your tasks are entered and organized, you want to purposefully capture the logical dependencies between your tasks. Do not consider any resource dependencies. Again, if you have followed the schedule development process discussed in Chapters 6–8, you will have this information from your team work sessions.

• Setup Custom fields— Insert and setup any custom columns you want/need for this project.

• Enter estimated durations or work efforts— For each task, enter the estimated duration or work efforts by resource. Until a resource is assigned, no work effort is calculated for the task.

• Assign resources to each task— Now you are ready to assign resources to the tasks and continue the schedule development process.