1,300 plus attendees at the Microsoft Project 2009 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, were treated to a preview of the next release of Microsoft Project.  Chris Capossela, senior VP with the Microsoft Business Division, presented Wednesday morning’s keynote on Microsoft Project 2010 followed by an overview demonstration of the product line by Keshav Puttaswany, Group Program Manager of the Microsoft Project Business Unit.

Capossela discussed the four pillars of the new product line as:

• Simpler and intuitive user experience.
• Enhanced collaboration and reporting.
• Scalable and connected platform.
• Providing unified project and portfolio management.

Puttaswany’s demonstration was often greeted with applause as various features were showcased.  A number of breakout sessions through the remainder of the conference highlighted many of the specific aspects of both MS Project Professional and MS Project Server 2010. 

This release was by far the most significant upgrade to MS Project since its debut in 1987.  Microsoft has consolidated Project Server and Portfolio Server into one application and  has removed the word “Office” from the product line.  The three applications under the 2010 product line will be:

• Microsoft Project Standard 2010
• Microsoft Project Professional 2010
• Microsoft Project Server 2010

The Beta version of the product will be available later this year and general release will occur in the first half of 2010.

In future posts, I will discuss some of the new features including:

• The “Ribbon” user interface.
• The “Team Planner”.
• The “Time Line” view.
• SharePoint “Sync”.
• And other improvements over existing features.

“Glen, I was just assigned to lead my first project. I don’t know anything about project management, so I bought Microsoft Project”.  

If I received a dollar for every time I heard that statement, I could have retired by now.  I usually respond by asking the person, if they wanted to become a best-selling author would they buy Microsoft Word?  Without the proper understanding of how to craft a story, develop the characters, and other writing techniques, your chances of success are nil.

It’s the same with project management; without the basic understanding of project management principles, your chances of a successful project are diminished - with or without MS Project. Often I can ascertain a person’s level of understanding project management by looking at their MS Project plan.  Buying MS Project does not make one a project leader.

Recently, with the increased interest in project management offices (PMO) in healthcare, I have seen a similar trend; an organization wants to implement a PMO, therefore they buy a project portfolio software package. Often, this purchase occurs even before the PMO has been established!

A survey by the University of Quebec at Montreal Business School reports that 60% of PMOs have installed and implemented portfolio management software. By correctly choosing and implementing a software package, the PMO can customize the tool to manage project proposals, help select and prioritize projects, develop project lifecycle workflow, enforce their methodology, allocate resources, and create project scorecards and portfolio dashboards.

To be successful with portfolio software, the PMO must clearly define its purpose and goals and implement the tool correctly to meet its objectives. Buying a project portfolio software package does not make a PMO.

One of the most useful functions of MS Project is the ability to display the entire project in the Gantt Chart view (View, Zoom, Entire Project, OK).  If you find that you use this function often, you many want to create a “ZEP” button (Zoom Entire Project) to reduce the number of clicks from four to one.

First you will need to create a macro:
• On the menu bar select Tools
• Select Marcos
• Click Record New Macro…
• Macro name: ZEP
• Click OK
• Hold the Alt key and press in order the following keys: V, Z, and E
• On the menu bar select Tools
• Select Marcos
• Click Stop Recorder

Next create a ZEP button on the Formatting tool bar:
• On the menu bar select Tools
• Select Customize
• Click Toolbars…
• In the Commands tab, click Rearrange Commands…
• Click the Toolsbar: radio button and select Formatting in the pull down list
• Click Add
• In the Categories list, select All Macros
• In the Commands list, select ZEP and click OK
• Close all the dialog boxes.

If you want to get fancy, you can create a graphic for the ZEP button.  I created a zepplin for my version of MS Project.  (Must be my penchant for the 1960’s rock band Lead Zepplin) 

Determining where a resource in a project plan is over allocated (scheduled for more work than available) in a project or across multiple projects is a difficult without project management software. 

Fortunately, MS Project can easily identify over-allocated resources, when each resource is over-allocated, and how much each resource is over-allocated.

First display the resource allocation view. This view will display an upper pane (resources) and a lower pane (tasks):

• On the menu bar select View
• Select More Views…
• Click Resource Allocation
• Click Apply

To find the over-allocations:

• Press the ALT + F5 keys.
• Notice that the upper pane shows the first resource that is over-allocated and that the lower pane show which tasks the resource is over-allocated and the dates
• Continue to press Alt + F5 keys until you identify all the over-allocated tasks.

Once you have reached the end of all the over-allocations, you will need to reset the function to repeat the search. To reset the “find over-allocation” function:

• Click the Details column heading.
• Press the ALT + Home keys.
• You can now start the process again.

Project leaders often use constraints to denote a deadline. The problems with using a constraint for a deadline is that this limits the scheduling calculation on your project and your ability to resource level. A better method is to use a deadline marker. Deadlines in MS Project do not affect the project schedule.

To set a deadline:
• Double click the task for which you want to set a deadline.
• In the Task Information dialog box, select the Advanced tab.
• In the Deadline filed, enter or select the deadline date.
• Click OK

The deadline will be displayed as a green arrow on the Gantt Chart.

If a deadline date will be missed, an red caution indicator will display. You can also filter for tasks with deadlines to quickly view the status of your deadlines:

To filter for deadlines:
• On the menu bar select Project
• Select Filterfor…
• Select More Filters
• Select Tasks with Deadlines
• Click Apply