Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual

by Bonnie Biafore

Overview

Schedules, budgets, communications, resources. Projects big and small include them all, and Microsoft Project 2007 can help you control these variables — not be controlled by them. But Project is complex software, and learning it is, well, a project in itself. Get up to speed fast with Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual. Written by project management expert Bonnie Biafore, this book teaches you how to do everything from setting budgets and tracking schedules to testing scenarios and recognizing trouble spots before your project breaks down.

Find out what's new in Project 2007 from previous versions, and get help choosing the right edition, whether it's Project Standard, Project Professional, or Enterprise Project Management Solution. With Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual, you get more than a simple software how-to. You also get a rundown on project management basics and plenty of solid advice on how to use Project to:

• Define your project and plan your approach
• Estimate your project, set up a budget, define tasks, and break the work into manageable chunks
• Create a schedule, define the sequence of work, and learn the right way to use date constraints and deadlines
• Build a project team and assign resources to tasks: "who does what"
• Refine the project to satisfy objectives by building reality into the schedule, and learn to keep project costs under control
• Track progress and communicate with team members via reports, information sharing, and meetings that work
• Close out your project and take away valuable lessons for the future

Microsoft Project 2007 is the flagship of all project management programs, and this Missing Manual is the book that should have been in the box. No project manager should be without it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596528362
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/15/2007
Series:	Missing Manual Series
Pages:	702
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

After spending 10 years as a project manager and tech writer for Electronic Data Systems, McDonnell Douglas, and others, Bonnie Biafore became a full-time financial-software writer in 1997. She's a columnist for both Quicken.com and Better Investing magazine and the author of Quick Books 2005: The Missing Manual, Quicken 2006 for Starters: The Missing Manual, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Personal Finance.

Table of Contents

The Missing Credits; About the Author; About the Creative Team; Acknowledgements; The Missing Manual Series; Introduction; What's New in Project 2007; Where Microsoft Project Fits In; Choosing the Right Edition; Complementary Software; Getting Around Project; About This Book; Part I: Project Management: The Missing Manual; Chapter 1: Projects: In the Beginning; 1.1 What's So Special About Projects?; 1.2 What Is Project Management?; 1.3 Why Manage Projects?; 1.4 Picking the Right Projects; 1.5 Gaining Support for a Project; 1.6 Publicizing a Project and Its Manager; Chapter 2: Planning a Project; 2.1 Project Planning in a Nutshell; 2.2 Defining the Project; 2.3 Documenting How You'll Run the Project; 2.4 Laying Out Project Processes; Chapter 3: Taking Microsoft Project for a Test Drive; 3.1 Creating a Project Schedule; 3.2 Saving Your Project; Chapter 4: Breaking Work intoTask-Sized Chunks; 4.1 Identifying the Work to Be Done; 4.2 Building a WBS in Microsoft Project; 4.3 Setting Up Customized WBS Codes; 4.4 Documenting a WBS in Another Program; 4.5 Importing a WBS into Project; 4.6 Documenting Work Package Details; Chapter 5: Estimating Work Time; 5.1 Understanding Work and Duration; 5.2 Getting Good Estimates; 5.3 Getting Estimates into Project; Chapter 6: Setting Up a Project Schedule; 6.1 Creating a New Project File; 6.2 Saving a New Project; 6.3 Setting Up Project Options; 6.4 Adding Tasks to a Project; 6.5 Inserting, Moving, and Deleting Tasks; 6.6 Copying Tasks; 6.7 Modifying a Task's Level in the Outline; Chapter 7: Making a Schedule That's Easy to Maintain; 7.1 How Tasks Affect One Another; 7.2 Building Relationships Between Tasks; 7.3 Scheduling Task Work Time with Calendars; 7.4 Keeping a Schedule Flexible; Part II: Project Planning: More Than Creating a Schedule; Chapter 8: Building a Team for Your Project; 8.1 Identifying Project Resources; 8.2 Understanding Project's Resource Type; 8.3 Adding Resources in Microsoft Project; 8.4 Providing Detailed Resource Information; Chapter 9: Connecting Resources to Tasks; 9.1 Assigning Work Resources to Tasks; 9.2 Finding the Right Resources; 9.3 Assigning Material Resources to Tasks; 9.4 Understanding Duration, Work, and Units; 9.5 Modifying Resource Assignments; 9.6 Adding and Removing Resources from Tasks; Chapter 10: Does the Schedule Work?; 10.1 Making Sure Tasks Are Set Up Correctly; 10.2 Defining Work Schedules with Calendars; 10.3 Building Reality into Assignments; 10.4 Balancing Workloads; Chapter 11: Setting Up a Project Budget; 11.1 Putting a Price Tag on Your Project; 11.2 Incorporating Resource Costs; 11.3 Preparing for Cost Calculations; 11.4 Reviewing Cost Information; 11.5 Comparing Costs to Your Budget; 11.6 Reducing Project Costs; 11.7 Setting the Project Fiscal Year; 11.8 Assigning Accounting Codes; Chapter 12: Refining a Project Schedule; 12.1 Evaluating the Project Schedule; 12.2 New Project Tools for Change; 12.3 Adjusting Resource Assignments; 12.4 Splitting Tasks into Smaller Pieces; 12.5 Overlapping Tasks; 12.6 Paying More for Faster Delivery; Chapter 13: Saving the Project Plan; 13.1 Obtaining Approval for the Plan; 13.2 Storing Project Documents; 13.3 Preserving the Original Plan in Project; Part III: Projects in Action; Chapter 14: Tracking Progress; 14.1 Picking the Best Way to Track Progress; 14.2 Obtaining Progress and Cost Data; 14.3 Entering Actual Progress in Project; Chapter 15: Evaluating Project Performance; 15.1 Scheduled, Baseline, and Actual Values; 15.2 Is the Project on Time?; 15.3 Checking on Work; 15.4 Is the Project Within Budget?; 15.5 Earned Value Analysis; 15.6 Getting Back on Track; Chapter 16: Managing Change; 16.1 Setting Up a Change Management System; 16.2 Managing Changes in Project; Chapter 17: Reporting on Projects; 17.1 An Overview of Project's Reports; 17.2 Text-Based Reports; 17.3 Working with Visual Reports; Chapter 18: Closing a Project; 18.1 Obtaining Project Acceptance; 18.2 Tying Up Loose Ends; 18.3 Producing Project Closeout Reports; 18.4 What to Do with Project Information; Part IV: Project Power Tools; Chapter 19: Working on Multiple Projects; 19.1 Managing Multiple Projects; 19.2 Sharing Resources Among Projects; Chapter 20: Exchanging Data Between Programs; 20.1 Copying Information; 20.2 Importing and Exporting Data; Chapter 21: Linking and Embedding; 21.1 Linking and Embedding; Chapter 22: Project on the Internet; 22.1 Hyperlinking to Information; 22.2 Integrating Project and Outlook; Part V: Customizing Project; Chapter 23: Viewing What You Want; 23.1 Creating Your Own View; 23.2 Changing Tables; 23.3 Changing the Way Text Looks; 23.4 Filtering Through Information; 23.5 Grouping Project Elements; Chapter 24: Defining Your Own Fields and Forms; 24.1 Defining Your Own Fields; 24.2 Building Your Own Forms; Chapter 25: Customizing Toolbars and Menus; 25.1 Customizing Menus and Toolbars; 25.2 Creating New Toolbars and Menus; 25.3 Editing Toolbars and Menus; 25.4 Creating Keyboard Shortcuts; Chapter 26: Reusable Project: Templates; 26.1 Sharing Custom Elements; 26.2 Storing Project Settings and Elements; 26.3 Building Templates for Projects; Chapter 27: Saving Time With Macros; 27.1 What You Can Do with Macros; 27.2 Recording Macros; 27.3 Running Macros; 27.4 Viewing and Editing Macro Code; 27.5 Learning More About Programming Project; Part VI: Appendixes; Appendix A: Installing Project; A.1 Installing Project on Your Computer; A.2 Activating Project; A.3 Maintaining and Repairing Project; Appendix B: Getting Help for Project; B.1 In Search of Project Help; B.2 Microsoft Office Online; B.3 Interactive and In-depth Assistance; Appendix C: Keyboard Shortcuts; C.1 How to Use Keyboard Shortcuts; C.2 Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Project; C.3 Selecting Elements in a Project View Table; Colophon;