MSIS & IT 425L Group Assignment One- Project management

Setting up your project scope, schedule, tasks and resources. 

1. Create a project! You will develop a 1. scope statement, 2. project schedule, 3. customized tasks and an initial 4. resource list. Please note, we are only creating a resource list which will later be entered into project. Please assign a role to each unique induvial. You may assign your own team names to get a better handle on the project. 

• For this lab, you enter the initial work breakdown schedule into MS Project. Please appropriately link your tasks with proper indentation and predecessor dependencies and successor lists.  You may use the attached Work Breakdown Structure as a model for your project.  Craft the tasks unique to your own group project. 
  • Project examples include Adding a new clothing line to an existing storefront, setting up a Special event, installing a new software package at a company, tracking packages, and/or Creating a unique product or service. 
  • The tasks should be set to automatic schedule. Create any unique start date. Also, create reasonable work durations. The typical task applied 1 day, by default. You may update the task durations, later in the assignment.

• Deliverable, you will submit the following: you may use a combination of word and project files, exported as .pdf files. If you want to start preparing for the final project, I advise that you enter all the information into PowerPoint, using screen shots, inserted images, etc.  Be sure to include the project scope, project schedule, project tasks and resource list. Again, we are not entering or assigning the resources to tasks. We will do this in Group Assignment 2.
  • For the first assignment, please submit your group name along with all of your group members, as they appear in Wiser. You may also include any nick names.

From the MS Info tab (in backstage view) to establish the Project start date. Now enter the start date and set the tasks to automatic scheduling and immediate calculation.

Note: To change specific date information, you may go to the row selector and select task, then navigate to the Project tab in the (information section) and adjust any specific date or scheduling details. 

Our sample project: We are setting up our own business. We have picked a business idea and now we need to go from writing our scope statement and project requirements to a fully established business. For these steps, we are going to create a project plan.

We will establish our unique Work Breakdown structure and enter the tasks into MS Project. 

Step 1: Create a new project

Choose Blank Project. First, let’s create a Project Summary Task. This is like an overall “benchmark” task that tracks and manages our entire project.  Microsoft Project Example: Create a summary task to cover your entire project.

Microsoft Project Example: What it looks like when you have created a project summary task

Step 2: Enter a project start date – You team will pick this date

You need to tell Project the date at which the project officially starts. To set the project start date, you may also access this function from the backstage view with the info tab opened.

Microsoft Project Example: Opening the Project Information dialog

Step 3: Enter the list of tasks

In this project, we need to accomplish the following tasks: Now, you will custom them to your unique project. Please refer to chapter 1 and 2 of your Core Textbook to properly assign relevant Project Phases. Be creative when you create your Projects tasks. Remember this is an initial top to bottom project task list. We must use automatic scheduling, also make sure your project is set to 

Market Research Project – WBS

 Market Research Project

1. Initiation Phase
   1. Requirements Gathering & Analysis
      1. Define process for gathering requirements
      1. Document project-stakeholder interview
      1. Analyze requirements
      1. Create requirements document
   1. Project Charter Development
      1. Business Case
      1. Project Scope Definition (High Level)
      1. Establish high-level time, cost, and resourcing estimates
      1. Establish list of key stakeholders
      1. Document project charter
      1. Project charter approval

1.3.Initiation phase approval

• Planning Phase
  • Project Plan Development
    • Scope Statement
    • Create scope description (based on business objectives)
    • Performance Baseline Measurement
    • Procurement Planning (Research Vendor Support)
    • Project Schedule Plan
    • Resource Management
    • Support PM Process Plans
    • Project Plan Approval
  • Planning Phase Approval     

• Execution Phase
  • Brainstorming Marketing
    • Prep Work
    • Brainstorming Session
    • Solicitation
    • Source Session (Research Vendor Selection)
    • Primary Market Research Task Development
  • Execution Phase Approval
• Closeout Phase
  • Contract Closeout
  • Lunch project “Lessons Learned” review
  • Establish process for archiving project data
    • Archive documents
  • Conduct administrative closeout
  • Closeout Phase Approval

If you look at the list, you notice that the tasks must be performed in a specific order. There are also some dependencies between the tasks. Now let’s enter those tasks into Microsoft Project. Enter the tasks into the table in Gannt view.

Microsoft Project Example: List of tasks in the Gantt view, before they were linked. At this stage, Project doesn’t have all the information it needs to create a schedule. It doesn’t know how long each task is going to take. So, the Duration column has a question mark and the start and finish dates aren’t correct yet.

Now, we need to “link” all tasks in the right order and enter the estimated durations.

Step 4: Enter task durations

Now, tell Project how long each task is going to take. What you enter here is the duration of the task, which is not the same as the effort. Duration is the total timespan until a task is finished. Effort (in Project, effort is called Work) is the amount of actual working time.

Enter the estimated duration in the duration column. Tip: you can either use the up/down arrows to change the values or enter for example “3d” to specify 3 days or “2w for 2 weeks of duration.

Never change the start or finish date of tasks manually. If a date calculated by Project does not fit, you should apply appropriate constraints instead. Look at chapter “Dependencies and constraints” in our Lab book.

Step 5: Link tasks in the right sequence. Tasks should be performed in a specific order. And we want to show this order in Project. Let’s link the tasks one after each other. There are two ways how you can link tasks:

The first method is to enter for each task which other task should come before it. That is, by defining a “predecessor”.

The second method is by using the “link” button from the menu: I’ll show you both methods now.

Let’s look at the first two tasks: Create business plan and Obtain business license.

We could do both at the same time, since we don’t necessarily have to have a business plan to apply for a license. But we want to focus on our business plan, get it done, and then work on the next task. So, getting a business license should follow after -Obtaining business plan.

To tell Project that getting business license comes after create business plan, you can simply enter create business plan as a predecessor for task Get business license (in the Predecessors column).The tasks are organized in a way similar to Excel using row numbers. These row numbers are used to identify tasks. Do the following: In the predecessor column, enter “1” for task #2 (Obtain business license)

Microsoft Project Example: Entering the predecessor of each task. Watch the result: Task “Obtain business license” is now scheduled right after task “Create business plan” (look at the blue task bars).

Did you notice that your change immediately changed the Gantt chart on the right side? Also note that Project skipped the weekend because our calendar settings defined that there should be no work on weekends.

Next, we still have to arrange the other tasks in the right order. To do so, I now show you the other way of linking dependent tasks. There is a shortcut in the menu. Select the remaining tasks in rows 2-8, as I have done below:

From the Task tab press the link button. Watch what happens to the Gantt view. Microsoft Project Example: Button for linking tasks, refer to the link icon, if you hover over the link icon, the explanation of the task function appears. 

Our tasks are now arranged in the right order, and the Gantt chart is updated: Microsoft Project Example: Updated Gantt chart with tasks arranged in sequential order

Hint:  If you have a lot of tasks and you schedule is very wide and want to jump to the respective task in the Gantt view, just right-click on the task and choose Scroll to Task. This will pull up the corresponding task bar.

Step 6: Add a milestone to your schedule

In every project you have certain milestones you are working towards. Milestones are certain points in time where some goal must be achieved. For example, a document must be prepared or a component must be finished. We haven’t included any milestone yet, so let’s do that now.

To mark the point where we’ve fully set up our business, create a new milestone named ‘Business fully set up’. How?

You create a milestone by changing a task’s duration to zero (zero days).

Milestones are shown as a grey diamond shapes. The best way to link a milestone to a previous predecessor task is to go to network diagram view and click and drag the milestone to link with the last task (run beta test)

Microsoft Project Example: Gantt chart with a milestone

I didn’t mention this before, but of course you need to schedule the “milestone task” right after the last regular task (Beta Test ). For this, you need to enter a predecessor for the milestone task.

The milestone we entered also marks the estimated finish date of the project.

It is easiest to link a milestone from the

Network Diagram view.

Upon entering all tasks, creating unique predecessors, etc. Please save the file as a .pdf by using the export tab from the backstage view.

You will also want to save a .MPP (MS Project file) to build upon and use throughout the semester.  Be sure to revisit the deliverable tab on page one of this Group Assignment Instruction for a full view and instructions of all of the Group Assignment One – Documents a