You’ve seen the signs at the copy store or the auto repair place: You can have
it fast, cheap, or right; pick two. That, my friend, is the triple constraint of
project management in a nutshell.
In a project, you have timing, resources (which are essentially costs), and
quality of the product or service produced at the end of the project. Microsoft
Project helps you manage the resources and timing of your project. The quality
of your project is often affected directly by how well you manage them. If
you add time, costs increase because resources are working longer hours at a
certain wage. If you take away resources, you save money, but this can affect
quality — and so on.
Coming to a logical balance of time, money, and quality is at the core of what
a good project manager does throughout the life of a project.
Applying tried-and-true methodologies
Microsoft Project incorporates some scheduling and tracking tools that are
the result of many years of developing project management methods. A few
of these are worth noting:
1- The Gantt Chart (shown in Gantt Chart view of Figure 1-7), which is
the main view of Project, shows you a spreadsheet with columns of
data along with a graphical representation of the tasks in the project
arranged along a horizontal timeline. By using the data in the columns
(such as task name, start date, finish date, and resources assigned to
tasks), you can understand the parameters of each task and see its
timing in the graphical area. Being able to view all this information on
one page helps you understand what’s happening in your project in
terms of time and costs.
2- The Network Diagram (also called a logic diagram), shown in Figure
1-8, is essentially the Microsoft version of a PERT chart. PERT (Program
Evaluation and Review Technique) was developed during the construction
of the Polaris submarine in the 1950s. This mostly graphical representation
of the tasks in your project reflects the flow of work in your
project rather than the literal timing of tasks. This view helps you to see
how one task flows into another and to get a sense of where you are —
not so much in time, but rather in terms of the work you have to
accomplish.
3- Risk management is a central part of project management because,
frankly, projects are chock-full of risk. You run the risk that your
resources won’t perform, that materials will arrive late, that your customer
will change all the parameters of the project halfway through —
well, you get the picture.
Risk management is the art of anticipating risks, ranking them from most
to least likely, and determining strategies to prevent the most likely ones
from occurring. Project helps you with risk management by allowing you
to try out what-if scenarios: You can change the start date or length of
a task or phase of tasks (for example) and see just what that change
does to your schedule, such as the delays, cost overruns, and resource
conflicts that might occur in such a scenario, down to the last hour and
penny. Having this kind of information at your fingertips makes risk management
easier and (almost) painless.
4- Resource management consists of using resources wisely. A good project
manager finds the right resource for the job, assigns that person a
reasonable workload, stays alert for shifts in the schedule that cause
that resource to be overbooked, and during the life of the project makes
adjustments that keep all resources most productive. In Project, tools
are available, such as a resource graph (traditionally called a histogram)
and the resource usage chart (shown in Figure 1-9), which reflects
resource workload.
