Managing Projects. With. MinuteMan Project Management Software

Transcription

1 Managing Projects With MinuteMan Project Management Software Copyright 2011 by MinuteMan Systems

2 Introduction This is a brief introduction to the use of Project Management Software to help you organize a project. In your work you may have a lot of things going on and someone has suggested that Project Management Software could help you put together a schedule, or track people s assignments, or estimate costs. So, you search around on the Internet, or someone recommends a specific Program to you, you download and install it, and you wonder what to do next. This manual will describe the basic concepts used in Project Management, and show you how to apply them to your work. Specific examples and instructions are given for organizing your Project with MinuteMan. There are many fine Project Management products around, and truth to tell almost any of them can be used for your work. However, you ll probably find many of them provide a lot of functionality you don t need; they re often sized for bigger projects up to and including things like Boston Massachusetts Big Dig. MinuteMan was developed to serve the needs of smaller projects, and hopefully will be appropriate for your work. Topics What is Project Management Software Actually Used For? Preparing a Basic Schedule The PERT Chart Timelines Entering Your Schedule Using MinuteMan More Details on Schedules The Critical Path Planning Resources and Costs Distributing Your Schedule Multi-Project Tracking

3 What is Project Management Software Actually Used For? Let s define some terms; Project Management ( PM ) software is used to define or track either or both of two primary measurable entities; Schedule To estimate, and manage, the schedule of a project. The emphasis is often on getting the project done on time or sooner. However, it can also be used to coordinate the efforts of different people letting the Painters know when the walls will be ready for painting. Costs You may have a fixed number of people (or tools) available, and you need to decide who works on what on which day. You want to make sure nobody is assigned to work on two different tasks at the same time. Estimating those people s salaries may likely also be needed. In addition to labor costs, you may also need to itemize any major expenditures that need to be made for the project. Almost every project requires a schedule to be developed. Labor and Expenditure costs may or may not be needed on some projects. Besides creating a schedule, and estimating costs, an important role of PM software is the ability to present needed information about the project to people; to report to Management, or to let different participants know when they are needed. PM Software provides graphic and text-based methods to distribute such information. There are diagrams to describe the schedule, and text-based reports for tracking schedule, progress, and costs. These can also be provided in hard-copy format, or electronic file format so they can be incorporated into Word Processor documents and s.

4 Preparing a Basic Schedule The PERT Chart Preparing a schedule means defining the tasks that make up a project, how long each will take, and what their relationships are. Here is a description of a very simple product development project Example 1 - Let s say there are 4 steps that must be done in order; 1.) Define Product (Time = 2 work days) 2.) Design Product (Time = 3 days) 3.) Build Prototype (Time = 2 days) 4.) Test Prototype (Time = 4 days) 5.) Build Production Units for sale/shipment (Time = 4 days) A very convenient way to illustrate this is with a type of flow chart called a PERT Chart ( PERT = Project Evaluation Review Technique ) The 5 tasks are shown proceeding from left to right, with a line from each task to its following task. While not described above, and additional task Ship Product (with Time = 0 days) has been added at the end just to show completion. It is common to include such zeroduration markers, called milestones to indicate important points reached in a project. Often tasks are indicated by a square or rectangle, and milestones are indicated with a clipped box or a diamond. Milestones can also be used to mark the start of a series of activities or the arrival of a gating item (i.e. the lumber is delivered, so the carpenters can start building.) From here onwards, we ll define terms, as they appear, that are commonly used in the industry. You ll find them used by almost every PM Software product

5 Timelines A PERT Chart is useful for showing the flow of work. It is also helpful to give a better sense of time by showing the tasks against some form of calendar; This is called a Timeline and is also called a Gantt chart. (Named after its inventor, Henry Gantt)

6 Entering Your Schedule Using MinuteMan We described above a very basic schedule but you probably want to know how you actually enter tasks in MinuteMan. MinuteMan has 3 different Views from which you can enter and edit your schedule the Outline, the PERT Chart, and the Timeline. The PERT and Timeline views look almost exactly like the preceding diagrams. The Outline is the most flexible for entering and editing schedules, and is the default when you launch MinuteMan. The Outline combines some of the features of a PERT Chart with a spreadsheet-like ability to create an outline of your work. The use of all three views is described in great detail in MinuteMan s Help file. A cursory description will be given here. When you first launch Minuteman, the Outline View shows a basic new project with a single task Start.; The grid below the blue Tasks title is a large field where you can draw or place individual tasks. Any box can hold one task. To enter a task at a location, click the location to highlight it, and click the +Task button above. To delete an existing Task, click it and then click -TASK. Like a spreadsheet, you can add or delete columns and rows using the ROW +/- and Col +/- buttons. Tasks entered using the +Task button are independent. You can create a link between tasks by positioning the cursor over the predecessor task, pressing down on the LEFT mouse button, dragging to the Successor (Following) task, and releasing the mouse button. You can also manage links for any task using the Links button. You can enter a new task and create a link to at the same time by positioning the cursor over the predecessor task, pressing down on the LEFT mouse button, dragging to a vacant box in the grid, and releasing the mouse button. You can move any one task by positioning the cursor over the task, pressing down on the RIGHT mouse button, dragging to a vacant box in the grid, and releasing the mouse button.

7 The Area below the title Work Outline applies a numerical Outline to the work. Any box in the column acts as an overall title for any/all tasks in the row to its right. When you create a column of titles, they are numbered automatically. All tasks in a row are numbered sequentially after the number of the row s title. You can indent or outdent the numbering of these rows using the Promote/Demote buttons. In this manner you are creating what looks a lot like a PERT Chart, but with a numerical hierarchy it that is useful for many projects. IMPORTANT MinuteMan periodically re-aligns all tasks as far to the left as possible while having each task stay to the right of any predecessors. This creates a compact view of the actual flow of the project. You can shut off this automatic alignment using the menu entries for Options and Overall and Automatic Reposition Tasks. The box above the Work Outline and Tasks contains data about the presently selected task. Here, you can enter or edit a task s description, Start Date/Time, and Duration. You cannot edit the End Date or Time; those are calculated from the specified Start Date/Time and Duration. Note that when you click the Start Date or Time a Calendar or Clock will pop-up. By clicking the Calendar button on the Toolbar you can set the Calendar and Clock for identify working and non-working days and times. Please see the MinuteMan Help File for details on using the many capabilities of this Calendar. From the Outline View you can switch to the PERT and Timeline Views. Use the menu entry for VIEW. You can edit all the task data in either of these views. In the PERT View you can add delete and move tasks just as in the Outline View.

8 More Details on Schedules The preceding example was extremely simplified. For one thing, it involved a single sequence of tasks; only one is taking place at a time, and they follow each other. Real projects often have multiple activities taking place concurrently. Also, there are usually interdependencies between some of the activities. Example 2 Multiple activities Let s assume that there is a marketing activity that has to accompany this product development. Let s say it is just a single activity, lasting 10 days, but it can t start until the product is defined, and the product can t be shipped unless the marketing activity has been completed. Out PERT chart and Timeline now become; Note that Ship Product has a line going back to Marketing Lines feeding into one activity are called links and the preceding task is called, appropriately, a Predecessor of the following task. By definition an activity with multiple predecessors cannot start until all its predecessors are complete.

9 Also notice that the Marketing activity conveniently ends 3 days before the Shipping activity. What if it ran 5 days later? With our PM software we can change the duration of Marketing from 10 days to 15 and we now see; We see now that the Ship Date has been pushed out until after the marketing activity is completed.

10 The Critical Path In PERT Charts and Timelines it is common practice to highlight, usually in Red, the sequence of tasks that are directly leading up to the completion of the project. This sequence is called the Critical Path. In Example 1, there was only one sequence of tasks, so they were all Critical. Changing the duration of any one task would change the completion of the last task or milestone. In Example 2, initially Marketing did not effect the end date, so Marketing was shown in Blue. However, when Marketing grew to 15 days it gated the Ship date. The Critical Path moved to include Marketing. Other tasks went off the critical path. Note that - For any project there will always be a critical path. - The Start and End of the project are by definition on the Critical Path - In the event of a tie in date calculations, the critical path may fork at one point and rejoin at a further point you can have multiple concurrent tasks on branches of the critical path. By focusing efforts on tasks that are on the critical path, you can shorten your project. Common steps are to re-assign more resources to critical path activities, or pay extra for expedited service on purchased activities (such as overnight delivery) In the above examples, the PERT chart is useful for observing the relationship of tasks, while the Timeline, and especially the critical path, help to identify the timeliness of the project.

11 Concluding Remarks on Basic Scheduling This has been a very simple introduction to scheduling. (Following sections will deal with Resources and Costs). Schedules for real projects can grow to include many, perhaps hundreds, of tasks. An important PM skill is the ability to break a project down into its component activities, determine or estimate the durations of the activities, and define the relationship between the activities. This can be an ongoing process of refinement. Sometimes you ll have a Pert Chart, and someone will say but task B can t start then! Be sure to ask Why not and you ll probably hear something like it has to wait for X and you ll have discovered another task and/or dependency. Definitions The following terms have been defined in this section. These are all common terms in the field of Project Management, and you ll see them referred to by almost any PM software product you use. PERT Chart: A flow chart showing a sequence of activities. It includes of a box or similar marker for each activity, with the box containing some key information about the activity. Task: An activity with non-zero duration, usually representing some well-defined amount of work. Milestone: An activity with zero duration, usually representing a significant event, or the completion of a sequence of related tasks. Timeline, or Gantt chart: A Drawing showing the occurrence of activities in a calendarlike format. Critical Path: The sequence of Tasks, which directly effect the completion of a project. Critical Activity: Any activity on the Critical Path Non-Critical Activity: Any activity not on the Critical Path

12 Planning Resources and Costs Having a schedule is important, but a lot of times the focus is on the application of people and/or equipment. Planning Resources consists of two primary steps; defining the available resources, and then assigning them to the various tasks. Defining The Resources MinuteMan provides a form where you can define the resources available to work on your project. It is activated by the resource list symbol filled in example of what will appear; on the Toolbar. Here is a To add a resource to the list, you type its description in the field Name/Description. You should also enter an hourly rate for the resource. The Max field allows you to specify if there are a fixed number of resources available of that type. Reports can be run later that will show if, at any point in time, any resource is oversubscribed. After making the entries, you can either click the ADD Button or just the Enter key on your keyboard. Here s an important thing about resources; depending on your project s needs, you may want to define them by Description (Hardware Engineer, Tech Writer, etc) or by Name ( Joe, Marie, Dave, etc.). Depending on the size of your organization and the nature of your project, you may be interested in just identifying a pool of people by Description, or you may need to track individuals to make sure no one person is supposed to be doing two different things at the same time.

13 You can click an existing entry in the list and it will appear in the definition row. You can then edit any of the fields, or even delete it (using the DELETE button.) The MinuteMan program is setup that when you save a project, its resource list is also saved as a separate file. If you use File + New on the main menu to create a new Project the existing resource list is carried over. If you Open another existing project that already has a project list, it s resource list is loaded. You can also Save an the resource list for a currently open Project, and the Get it as the resource list in another Project when you re working on it.

14 Assigning Resources to Tasks Once you have a schedule, and a list of available resources, the next step is to assign them define resources to tasks. This is pretty straightforward; in MinuteMan you select the task, and then click the Costs button. The following screen will appear; In this example, we ve selected the first Task Define Product. Resources are added by selecting them from the drop-down menu under Description, entering a Quantity, and then clicking Add (or using the Enter key). As with the Resource definition menu, you can click an individual entry to edit or delete it. For good reason, you do not edit data in this view for the Hourly rate or max. available for the resources ; you go back to the global Resource List for that. There are two more important things to note on this entry form; 1.) The Expenditures box allows you to indicate any fixed costs that are associated with a task. The cost of resources varies with the task s duration. Other items, such as buying equipment, or travel, are purchases that are independent of the duration. While no costs are associated with the Define Product particular task, others (Build Prototypes may well have material costs that need to be recorded. In a detailed project, you may find it useful to define some tasks with no people- resources, just to record expenditures. ( Buy Chairs. ) 2.) The Summary box on the right calculates the total cost for this task. It multiples each of the resources by its duration and its hourly cost, sums them, adds the total resources costs to the cost of any expenditures to get the total task cost. There is also a box where you can enter a Percent Completion. The Earned Value is calculated as the task s full cost (at completion) multiplied by the Percentage complete. You don t need to use this, but in some projects it is necessary to report on this for budget tracking purposes.

15 Distributing Your Schedule Now that you ve got your schedule and costs entered, what do you do with it? You need some way to review the information, and likely present it to your management and others who are involved in the project. MinuteMan can provide just about any type of reporting that you need. First, all three entry views (Outline, PERT, and Timeline) can be either printed or sent to a graphics file. The graphics files can then be read into a word processor document or . To print any of these, just click the printer icon. Select a printer device. If desired, do Print Preview. If you want a graphics file output, select Graphics File Format from the list of printers. Graphics files will be sent to a directory \GRAPHICS off the directory where MinuteMan is installed. Graphics files are identified by their extension BMP. There will typically be one graphics file corresponding to each hardcopy page that would have been printed. The Timeline is probably the most useful diagram it shows what is happening and when. (Note that there are also options to show resource usage as a timeline). The PERT Chart is an industry standard way of viewing the Flow of the project, and by focusing on the red-line the PERT Chart is the best way to re-plan to shorten the schedule. PERT Charts can take up a lot of pages the Outline View may often allow a more compact way of examining the flow of the project. Besides the diagrams, text data reports are also a useful way of telling what s happening. MinuteMan s Report Generator (accessed from the Main Menu) has a number of predefined and customizable reports. These include a Schedule Report, Costs Overall, Headcount, Expenditures, and an Earned Value report. There are too many possible configurations to discuss each here but you can easily experiment. Text Reports can be printed, or sent to text files to be included in Word Processor documents or s.

16 Conclusion This document has touched only briefly on the basics of Project Management and the use of MinuteMan Project Management Software. For basic Project Management there are a great many books written, and a great many resources available on the World Wide Web. For MinuteMan itself, please refer to the detailed Help file built into the program If you have further questions please send them to info@minuteman-systems.com There are a great many things that other PM software packages do, that MinuteMan does not. This is largely intentional the program was written to focus more on easy to use than does everything imaginable. Experience has shown that having too many features is actually a detriment to those users having modest requirements. Still, MinuteMan is constantly being updated to reflect the needs of entry-level to intermediate users. If you have a suggestion for an added feature, or a way to make the program more user-friendly, please send an to the address above a great many of MinuteMan s features are the direct result of user s requests.