What is Microsoft Project 2007?
21 July 2007
This is a Free Tutorial about Microsoft Project 2007 and you find more free tutorials here written by Johan Beijar. More tutorials about Microsoft Project 2007 are frequently added. These tutorials will not guarantee that you will run a successful project or be a great manager but it will increase you possibilities of understanding and work more efficiant with the project management software.
First of all:
You manage the project! Say after me: “I, the Project Manager, manage and control the project.”
It is essantial to understand that you as a project manager are responsible and accountable for the success of the project(s) that you manage. To assist you in this task you have a number of different tools such as resources, budgets, plans, contracts and maybe a project management software like Microsoft Project 2007 (MS Project 2007). The tool is here to assist you and if you think that this tool will solve all the challenges that you have as a project manager you need go back to square one and re-think. This tool will assist you in the decision making process, nothing else. Softwares like MS Project 2007 and similiar are often called “Project Management Software” but I would like to call them “Project Administration Software” because they will not Manage the project for you but it will support you when it comes to administrative tasks in the project.
I’ve heared project managers that says: “We will use MS Project so we will be fine.” When I hear such things a smile for my self, take a deep breath and start to explain that using MS Project 2007 will not solve anything if you not know the basics of the tool and how to use it efficiant in a project.
But on the other hand…
MS Project 2007 can be a wonderful assistant to have in the project if you utilize it in the correct way.
Correctly used will MS Project 2007 Standard Edition support you with the following;
- Task administration. You are able to plan and administrate all the tasks you have in the project. You can via views look upon the tasks from different angles that provide information in different ways.
- Resource administration. You have extensive possibilities to administrate the resources in the project, both human and material resources.
- Reporting. The tool have useful reports that you easily can produce.
- Budgeting. Use Microsoft Project to define the budget for the project and also follow up against the budget.
- Follow up of progress. Does the project follow the plan? Define the baseline and you can measure the progress against it.
This is actually MS Project 2007 in a nutshell but there are of course many details in each area and vast amout of functionallities to explore in the tool.
The majority of the users will be fine with the Standard edition of MS Project 2007 but larger companies should consider to use the Proffesional edition that will give you additional features such possibilities to work with MS Project Server and Office Project Web Access.
Read more about when you should use what in Microsoft Project 2007.
Good Luck!
//Johan Beijar
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4 Responses to “What is Microsoft Project 2007?”
July 31st, 2007 at 2:48 pm
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August 14th, 2007 at 7:00 am
its quite informative
January 16th, 2008 at 6:18 am
very good,relevent,trusted,educational blog.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:21 am
I found your blog the best amongst all the others that are there on the internet…very precise, simple,relevant..i cant stop but admire your ability to simplify things…i think creativity lies in simplifyin things so that any ordinary person is able to grasp without much assistance….way to go!!!!!
Dear Champaka,
Thank you for those kind words. It will help to further continue to develop the site.
Once again…thank you!
BR Johan Beijar