Microsoft Project's purpose and functionality is best described by the definition of a project: A project is a unique undertaking that has a clearly defined start and finish, and requires the management of time, resources, cost and quality.

Project management is defined as a broad set of skills to properly initiate, plan, execute, control and close a project. The primary skills are scoping (i.e., describing and agreeing on project objectives and requirements), scheduling, and estimating. Added to these core skills are managing risk and uncertainty, managing quality, communicating, managing ourselves, and collaborating with others, including suppliers of goods and services and everyone else who works on or is affected by the project.

The people who are involved or interested in a project are referred to as stakeholders. A Microsoft Project course, delivered by a Microsoft certified trainer, will give you an in-depth understanding of this application. Below is a brief overview.

MS Project has been designed to assist project managers in the development of plans, to assign resources to tasks, to track progress, to manage budgets and to analyse workloads. As a comparison, let's look at the difference between production and project management.

With production management, the objective is to achieve a succession of consistent products. With project management the end result is less clearly defined and the certainty around its achievement not assured, thereby turning it into a bit of an art form. In some ways the dividing line between projects and operational activities, such as production management, is not clear; often an operational activity is a series of small projects. However, what is clear is that a healthy project has a finite end that is reached either when the project objectives have been met or when the project is cancelled.

Effective portfolio management and multi-project management are among the most critical factors for successful projects. They address many of the root causes of continual problems in projects, such as the chronic over-burdening of resources and constant priority shifts that create confusion and that impact productivity.

Taking a look back in history, one can use the Great Wall of China as a fine example of project management. There certainly must have been a project manager to mastermind and oversee the massive project that resulted in the construction and completion of this mammoth construction project that was completed around 200BC. It is a point worthy of debate whether the project was completed within time constraints and within budget, but the project was on such a massive scale that it is hard to imagine how it was ever completed with out the technology and resources that are available to modern humans, even just in the last 20 years let alone the past 1000.

It wasn't until the advent of the personal computer, and practical applications such as MS Project, that the considerable calculations that form part of successful project management were made more efficient and precise.