Evaluating projects created in MS Project | MS-Project forum

Hi Steve, thanks for your query. Have a read of this (apologies for the formatting!):

10 Signs You Don't Really Know Microsoft Project

1. You manually create a Project Summary Task

1. I think this is a purely mechanical aspect. It's a waste of effort to create an overall summary task, but I don't think it really affects calculations and the end result.

2. You "hard code" dates

2. Hard-coded dates are a definite mistake. At best a project plan is an educated guess of what is going to happen in the project. Activities never take exactly the time allotted to them, and there are those surprises that throw off timing. It's much better to status the project regularly and keep in communication with the team on what activities are active in the current time period.

3. You don't input the teams estimated Duration on all tasks

3. Without estimated durations, you cannot even claim to have an educated guess as to the project time line. However, I have used default durations to build templates and to play around with the project network.

4. Your tasks don't start with a verb
4. Another mechanical aspect of building project networks, but having tasks that are actions is a nice way to be clear about what is involved.

5. You assign Predecessors to Summary Tasks
5. Summary tasks are merely visual place holders for users. They shouldn't contain predecessor/successor links or any other data that will end up confusing project calculations.


6. You assign Resources to Summary Tasks

6. As above. Assigning "Bill" to the summary task will not show the proper loading for "Bill" over the time involved in that task.


7. You never inspect the critical path tasks

7. Neglecting to inspect the project plan is not a good idea. But neglecting to inspect the "critical path" is a sure way to execution problems. This is the longest path through the network, and mistakes here will derail the project instantly. (I prefer checking the critical chain, but it's the same result.)


8. You never search for (or eliminate) Resource Over-Allocations

8. The nice thing about Critical Chain Project Management is that it attempts to remove resource allocations in the identification of the critical chain. And then execution of the project uses buffers to manage situations where resources become over-allocated due to the natural task variations during execution.

9. You never Baseline your schedule
9. The baseline helps compare what you thought would happen to what is really happening during execution. I prefer monitoring the buffers provided by CCPM software.

10. You never update your schedule to align with reality

10. Good execution of projects requires that you update the activities in the project with what is happening. Otherwise, the educated guess you had at the start of the project becomes a pretty picture for your cubicle with little connection to reality. CCPM execution of projects cannot work without regular "how much time remaining" updates on open tasks.

What about some other signs? One of my favorites is signs that you don't know how to execute a project (holding people to the dates in the original plan, forced-multitasking, assuming local success creates overall success).

Hope this helps,

Anthony