Project Schedule

00:04 Everything you've done to this point the work breakdown structure, the activity list, estimating durations, applying buffers, sequencing activities, the critical path analysis, the Gantt-Chart all have been leading to this point.

00:21 A nice cup of tea.

00:23 Just kidding. Project managers don't have time to drink tea.

00:27 It's time to build the project.

00:28 Schedule the almighty project plan for all your information.

00:33 Now we'll give you a tutorial on how to use MS Project, a super tool that lets you input dates, link activities to one another, and all the extra information you could need. Hi, welcome to our MS Project tutorial. This is a super useful tool for scheduling big projects with many activities.

00:55 The tool offers many functionalities to help you create change and control your project schedule most efficiently.

01:04 And it's very simple to use.

01:06 It works similarly to excel, just that it is customized for scheduling work. Let's see what we have on the main screen.

01:17 To the left, we have the main table where the tasks need to be listed and scheduled.

01:24 To the right, we have the Gantt-Chart field, which is automatically populated as you type in your tasks.

01:32 Above. We also have a timeline indicator to which you can add manually selected tasks.

01:39 Let's hide this now and focus on the main part.

01:44 I will expand the main part, swiping the Gantt-Chart part to the right. Okay.

01:51 Let's start with the task name.

01:55 You need to type the name in the field.

01:58 Then we have duration where you can select the duration in days, weeks or months.

02:06 After you have start and finish, this is where you need to select the calendar day on which the tasks will start and finish moving further to the right.

02:18 You have predecessors.

02:19 This is the field where you indicate dependencies between the tasks.

02:24 Then resource names.

02:27 Here you type the name or role of the person responsible for the task at hand. The last one is add new column and from the dropdown you can see many other options you can add.

02:41 We won't view them.

02:42 But to give you an example, percentage complete by clicking on it, it creates a new column.

02:52 Here you can type how much of the total work on a certain task is completed up until now? Let's see an example.

03:03 Say You need to refurbish your room.

03:06 You would have the following tasks.

03:10 Remove old furniture.

03:13 Before starting anything you need to empty the room you deem two days are an appropriate duration and fill it in.

03:22 Then you need to say which date it should start.

03:26 Spring sounds good.

03:28 Let's say April 8th.

03:31 By typing it, the tool automatically calculates the end date.

03:36 It knows it will take two days.

03:40 Resources. Let's say your brother is the person to do the heavy lifting. Next.

03:48 Cover the floor so nothing gets dirty during painting, let's say one day. Now, this one should start after we have removed the furniture.

04:00 Right. So we have a dependency.

04:05 We need to use the predecessor's field, and we have two ways to do this. Select the two tasks and click on link tasks.

04:16 There you go. It automatically populates the start date on the day after the first task is finished.

04:25 Resource. Let's say your father will be doing the covering and painting. Next.

04:33 Paint the room.

04:34 Let's say five days.

04:37 Again, this is dependent on the floor covering.

04:41 We will do the same.

04:43 But this time we will show you the other way.

04:47 You can directly type into the predecessor field the number of the task on which this one is dependent.

04:54 So to.

04:57 After painting, we will position the new furniture.

05:00 Let's say two days.

05:03 We will again use the dependency typing three.

05:08 Finally some decoration using the same logic and assigning your sister.

05:20 There you go. You have a plan.

05:23 Now let's see another important functionality, the summary task.

05:32 We want to see the painting activities in more detail.

05:36 We want to add some additional tasks underneath it.

05:40 Similarly to Excel, we select, let's say, five rows below right click and insert task.

05:49 There you go, five new rows.

05:52 Here. We want to plan when to paint the walls and the ceiling.

05:57 We type them in the same way.

05:59 However, they are now displayed as new independent tasks.

06:04 We need to indicate they are part of the paint room parent activity, so we select them and use the indent task button.

06:13 Now they are all subtasks to the main one.

06:16 Paint the room.

06:19 In the same way we populate their durations and dates.

06:30 Final point, you can also double click on each task to open up a window. Here you can see many details, including all of the functionalities we saw.

06:42 For example, predecessor tab gives you information on all dependencies, also notes where you can type additional information on a task. After completing the plan to the right, you can see the Gantt-Chart the MS project has automatically created for you.

07:05 Okay you now know how to use the tool for scheduling.

07:10 Do you want to see what our laboratory project plan looks like? Let's take a look.

07:16 You see to the right the activity list with durations, start and end dates and dependency indicator in the predecessor column.

07:26 Note, this is the high level summarized version.

07:30 However, we have 144 lines.

07:34 This means we have the full list, including many subtasks.

07:40 All activities with a plus sign to their right and in bold are summary tasks. Just click on the plus to expand.

07:49 Let's see a few of them.

07:52 Expand prepare land for construction.

07:55 It has three subtasks.

07:57 Assemble band position, safety barriers, clear site, etc..

08:03 Car manufacturing schedules for six cars.

08:07 By expanding them, you can see all the production steps identified recruit personnel.

08:15 Same thing. As explained at the beginning, MS project is easy to use and quite useful when planning projects.

08:25 It is also similar to Excel, so in case you do not have MS project, you can also try there.

08:32 Thanks for watching.

08:33 Wow. The project manager needs to go into loads of detail.

08:36 Right. But how can stakeholders hope to keep track of how a project is going? Well, a project manager creates a milestone table for them in this next lesson to see how and why we do that.

08:50 Thanks for listening.