Introduction
Friends, one thing that is constant in life or business is change and in today’s hi-tech world this changes are rapid.
To adopt to this rapidly changing business climates we require proper training, skills and tools that help us in planing and decision making and one such beautiful tool which I use is Ms Project for Software Project Management.
How does Ms Project help
MS Project provides number of tools, which helps in Planning and scheduling of Software Projects this includes keeping track of changes and constraints that occur from time to time in the project and effective means of communicating those changes to others (project members).
Gantt chart
Most of the planning and scheduling work in Ms Project revolves around Gantt chart, it’s basically a chart table with task information neatly arranged on the left side and schedule time for that task in bar format on right side.
How should one go about Planing & Scheduling?
Step 1:Pre Planning
First of all one must decide what should be the tasks and the order in which they will be executed and the duration of each tasks.
Step 2:Creating Schedule and entering tasks
Click on New from file menu and enter the date on which you want the project to commences in the dialog box then click on ok to start creating tasks and setting their duration.
Step 3:Using Tools(to name a few)
Task Delegation
Using this tool Project manager can set access settings for other members in the team.
Workgroup
Using this Project manager can assign tasks and check the status of task execution on workgroups.
Work Tracking
Project manager can track hours spent on each assigned task, and estimate the percentage of the task is completed.
Status Reports
Project manager can create custom report formats and can receive status reports individually from each team member and can automatically combine them to make a group report.
Exporting & Importing files
Worksheets: Excel, Lotus.
Databases: FoxPro, dbase.
Other formats supported: CSV, MPX
The Big Plus
If you ask me what’s the one big advantage of using ms project, I will definitely tell you is its ability to allow programmers to develop customized planning systems by using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications with OLE Automation (object model technology).
So guys, if you are interested in proper planning and scheduling of your software projects remember Ms Project is there.
Thanks for listening to me.