Discover how to effectively plan, implement, and control projects using Microsoft Project 2003. In this hands-on course, you'll learn how to apply the world's most popular project management software to your needs. You'll convert lists and schedules into an integrated plan you can be proud of, and you'll see how Microsoft Project can walk you through any project by helping you organize details, sequence tasks, produce a baseline, assign resources and costs, track progress, identify and analyze variances, revise your project plan, create schedules, and share everything with your customers and coworkers.

The course is filled with time-tested shortcuts and strategies will help you deftly avoid problems that plague most project managers. Should you encounter trouble on your project, you'll be armed with solutions designed to get things back on track. And you'll be well prepared to fine-tune just about any aspect of your project.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Microsoft Project can help you manage your project's schedule, costs, and scope in a way that you've never dreamed of. Unfortunately, too many Project users never use this powerful tool to its fullest potential. In our first lesson, you’ll discover how to improve your project by adopting a formal management approach. You’ll get a quick overview of Project Management and then we’ll cover the basics of Microsoft Project, including a summary of the Gantt Chart view and ways to create and enter project tasks.

Friday - Lesson 02

If you're looking for ways to keep organized, you'll learn just how to do that in today's lesson! We'll walk through steps to create a project schedule in no time flat. Once you create and enter tasks in Project's Gantt Chart view, you’ll need to set a schedule by using a calendar and assigning lead times. You also need to create task dependencies, sometimes known as links. You'll see how to perform these activities and, in the process, you’ll become comfortable using Project's many dialog boxes. Before you know it, you'll be creating schedules for all your projects with little effort.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

You won't get too far with your project without adding resources. While tasks create the backbone of your project, people, equipment, and material bring your project to life. In this lesson, you’ll find out how to apply two types of Project resources, work resources, and material resources. We'll look at two more dialog boxes—Resource Information and Assign Resources—and you'll learn how to analyze resources by using the Resource Sheet and Resource Usage views.

Friday - Lesson 04

No mater what project you work on, the bottom line is always important. So get ready to add the final piece to your basic project schedule: costs. We'll start things off by looking through a brief overview of cost accounting, exploring fixed, variable, relevant, and accrued costs. After this review, you'll learn how to assign costs by using the Resource Sheet. You'll even discover how to assign different costs for the same resource and analyze the overall costs for your project by using the Cost Table.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Successful project managers are known for their efficiency and for safeguarding private information. Microsoft Project provides two excellent methods to help you in these areas: project templates and project security. You’ll find out how to use some of the many templates Project has to offer, including the Residential Construction template and the New Product template. You'll also learn how to protect your project information with backups, passwords, and write protection. You’ll also discover how to put Project’s task constraints to good use.

Friday - Lesson 06

In this lesson, you’ll find out just how easy it can be to modify your basic schedules and work with project data. You'll discover the various Project views, such as the Calendar, Leveling Gantt, and the Network Diagram. And if you don't like the default colors or fonts in your schedule or table, you'll be well-prepared to make changes. You'll even discover how and why you might want to create a combination view; add notes to your project; or sort, filter, and group data.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Many projects experience schedule compression when management or clients ask that the project be completed sooner and for less. In today's lesson, you’ll discover how Project makes it easy to improve your schedule's performance. We'll explore the Project Statistics dialog box, and you’ll learn how to determine the ideal starting point in terms of planned costs and completion dates. You'll learn how to change task dependencies to speed up your project, and also find out how to split tasks to add more lead time. You'll also become familiar with a powerful project management technique based on a real-world application of probability principles: the Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT).

Friday - Lesson 08

Before you implement your project, you need to create a baseline. This will aid you in tracking actual results against what you originally set out to accomplish. Microsoft Project makes it possible to create a baseline with a few mouse clicks. I'll demonstrate how to create a baseline and then show you a variety of ways, including using the Tracking toolbar, to record your actual project results.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Here's where things really start to come together! You'll learn how to compare actual results to your baseline by using the Gantt Chart and reviewing a table. You'll discover how useful status identifiers and progress lines can be to quickly gain information about your project's position. You’ll also begin using the Tracking Gantt and filters to automatically identify slipping tasks. We'll also take a stroll through the basics of variance analysis by discussing the Start and Finish Date, Resources, and Work Variance Tables.

Friday - Lesson 10

Once your project gets rolling, outsiders will probably want to know how things are going. It can be a real time drain answering each request individually. When others request information from you, Microsoft Project offers the perfect solution: Reports. We'll go over 20 standard reports in five different categories in today's lesson. By the time you finish this lesson, you'll be well-acquainted with Project’s reporting capabilities, and you’ll know how to customize Project’s standard reports to meet almost any need. And if you can’t find a standard report that works for you, you’ll even know how to create new custom reports of your very own.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Now that you're using reports to share project information, you'll occasionally need to print out various views and tables. In this lesson, you’ll learn all about printing Microsoft Project documents. You'll be a master at creating different views of your project with the Page Setup dialog box, and you'll clearly understand the mechanics of the Print dialog box and the Print Preview.

Friday - Lesson 12

No project is complete until it's officially closed. In this final lesson, you'll find out how to close your project and use the Organizer to help you customize and copy views for future projects.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Tony Swaim.

Tony Swaim has helped many clients, colleagues, and students reach their professional and personal goals. He has been an online instructor since 1998 and has taught at colleges and universities across the United States since 1981. His focus areas are project management, purchasing, continuous process improvement (CPI)/Six Sigma, and supply chain management. Tony manages a successful consulting firm, and his industry experience includes 20 years of supply chain management. He earned an MBA from California State University, Long Beach, and holds professional certifications in six disciplines, including the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Requirements:

Microsoft Windows XP or 2000, Microsoft Project 2003 Standard (please be sure to install this software on your computer before the course begins), Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). This course is not suitable for Macintosh users.

Microsoft Project 2000 and 2002 users will be supported in the discussion area.

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