MS Project Made Simple: A Beginner's Tutorial

Explore five project management process groups, PMI methodologies, and agile approaches while learning to define scope with a work breakdown structure and translate plans to Microsoft Project.

A guided tour of the Microsoft Project interface explains starting a blank project or using templates, and using the quick access toolbar, ribbon, tabs, timeline, and detailed view.

Navigate the backstage view of Microsoft Project, create or open blank projects from various sources, and configure options like currency, auto scheduling, defaults, autosave, undo levels, and printing.

Launch Microsoft Project and create a new project from blank, existing, or Excel, using the backstage view and import wizard to map tasks, resources, and assignments.

Open an existing project, inspect and save it as a template for repeated use, and create new projects from that template using the commercial construction example.

Explore how to switch between views in Microsoft Project to reveal different project details, including network diagrams, calendars, timelines, and task sheets for identifying critical paths and resources.

Learn to create a new Microsoft Project, set a start date, save the file as office building expansion, and customize calendars with exceptions and yearly holidays.

Learn to create a work breakdown structure in Microsoft Project, add summary tasks and work packages, set up dependencies and durations, and customize via backstage view.

Enter activities and milestones into Microsoft Project, using the work breakdown structure and work packages to organize tasks. Designate milestones, insert tasks, and prepare for durations and relationships.

Define dependencies in Microsoft Project by using the predecessor column and link button to establish finish-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-start, and start-to-finish relationships, and set durations in days, weeks, or months.

Learn to add notes and hyperlinks to activities, view the critical path and slack, and use network diagram views to understand how duration drives project finish in Microsoft Project.

Set up and classify resources in Microsoft Project by creating labor, material, and cost resources, entering pay rates and calendars, modifying maximum units, and adding notes.

Learn to assign resources to tasks in Microsoft Project, control additions and removals, and calculate task costs using standard rates and units, with tutorials on viewing details and adjusting decimals.

Explore how effort driven tasks speed up projects by adding resources, compare fixed duration versus fixed units, and learn to use crashing and top-down and bottom-up estimates in Microsoft Project.

Learn how to balance workloads with resource leveling and create custom calendars in Microsoft Project, then assign calendars to tasks to prevent over-allocation.

Learn how baselines in Microsoft Project capture a snapshot of your plan to compare against actual progress, view baselines in the Gantt chart, and track schedule variance.

Explore earned value management to track project performance with plan value, earned value, and actual cost, calculating CV, SV, CPI, SPI, and forecasts in Microsoft Project.

Master monitoring and controlling projects with earned value metrics. Use cost variance, schedule variance, CPI, and SPI in Microsoft Project to guide status updates and interpret completion estimates.

Learn to create and customize timelines, build and view project reports with dashboards and cost overviews, and print or export Microsoft Project reports as PDF or Excel.

Learn to fine tune your Microsoft Project schedule by applying constraints, managing dependencies, customizing timescales and timeline views, and aligning with baselines.