of time as you create, track, and adjust the project.
Project can also factor in other scheduling information you might provide, such as specific deadlines or “drop-dead dates,” or the availability of assigned team members.
As you work through the project life cycle, you enter actual progress in Project, such as the percentage of specific tasks completed. Project updates the schedule accordingly, so you continue to see the projected schedule based on work already done. Then if necessary, you can adjust the timing of upcoming tasks to ensure that the schedule stays on track.
You'll start learning about scheduling tasks in Project in Lesson 4, “Set Up the Project and Tasks.”
Calculate Costs
Project helps you determine your budget. The majority of most project costs come from team members, with additional costs from equipment, materials, and travel expenses. In Project, you enter the resources required to carry out the tasks, the resources' cost per hour or per unit, and when and how much they will be needed (see Figure 2.2).
Then when you assign the resources to tasks, Project calculates the cost for the task based on the cost for the assigned resources. As shown in Figure 2.3, these costs roll up in your project plan to show overall project costs.
FIGURE 2.2 The Resource Sheet in Project
FIGURE 2.3 Task and project costs
As you enter actual progress on tasks, Project updates the costs so you can see actual costs so far and projected costs through to the end of the project. If the project is veering beyond the original project budget, you can adjust the plan to bring the project back under budget.
You'll learn about setting up costs in Lesson 6, “Set Up Resources,” in the section titled “Enter Resource Costs.”
Balance Resources
Project helps you keep a close eye on how your resources are used over the span of the project. After you assign resources to tasks, you can see when specific resources are overloaded or underused. You can then adjust the project plan to change resource assignments, adjust the schedule, or change the project scope to even out resource usage.
When you're first planning the project, seeing this overall resource picture can help you develop the resource plan, including the types of team members needed, how many team members with specific skills should be recruited, when they're needed, and who might have ramp-up and ramp-down periods. Your plan might also include equipment and materials needed to carry out tasks.
When the project is under way, being able to see and adjust your resource needs and allocations over time can help you use your resources—and therefore your budget—most effectively, avoiding downtime at one extreme and burnout at the other.
You'll start learning about resource planning and optimizing in Lesson 7, “Assign Resources to Tasks.”
Communicate Progress
From sharing expectations with team members to updating status with stakeholders, clear and steady communication is essential to successful project management. You can use the built-in Project views, reports, and dashboards as is, or customize them as needed to share the most relevant information with your different audiences. For example, see the built-in Project Overview dashboard in Figure 2.4.
FIGURE 2.4 The Project Overview dashboard
You'll learn about views and reports in Lesson 10, “View Project Information,” and Lesson 11, “Report Project Information.”
Respond to Changes
Some say that project management is essentially change management. When you create your project plan with the task schedule, assigned resources, and costs in place, it's only that—a plan. All the pieces are in exactly the right place, and the plan shows how you'll accomplish the project scope by the desired finish date and within the allotted budget. The plan reflects the perfect ideal. After you start executing the project in real life, however, things begin changing, and the project plan is no longer perfect.
For example, say a team member you were told would be available in May is not free until July. Materials that were estimated at $940 now cost $1,500. The project sponsor who originally agreed to a finish date of December 15 now insists on October 15.
These types of changes are inevitable, and they challenge your best efforts as a project manager. With Project, you can adjust various aspects of the project to compensate for these changes. If you have several choices to respond to a change, you might even run what-if scenarios in Project. You can then present the pros and cons of the scenarios to the team or other stakeholders to decide on the best course of action.
You'll learn techniques for responding to project changes in Lesson 8, “Check and Adjust the Project.”
Microsoft Project Solutions
Microsoft Project is available in online cloud-based subscription editions and on-premises desktop perpetual (nonsubscription) editions. Table 2.1 lays out these choices.
TABLE 2.1 Microsoft Project Editions
| Level | Online Editions | On-premises Editions |
|---|---|---|
| Basic work management and simple project management | Project for the web | |
| Basic project management | Project Online | Project Standard 2021 |
| Professional project management | Project Online Desktop Client | Project Professional 2021 |
|
Project portfolio management (PPM)
|
