Understand what defines a project First, a project is temporary.

A projects duration might be just one week or it might go on for years, but every project has an end date. You might not know that end date when the project begins, but its out there somewhere in the future. Projects are not the same as ongoing operations, although the two have a great deal in common. Ongoing operations, as the name suggests, go on indefinitely; you dont establish an end date. Examples include most activities of accounting and human resources departments. People who run ongoing operations might also manage projects; for example, a manager of a human resources department for a large organization might plan a college recruiting fair. Yet, projects are distinguished from ongoing operations by an expected end date, such as the date of the recruiting fair. Next, a project is an endeavor. Resources, such as people and equipment, need to do work. The endeavor is undertaken by a team or an organization, and therefore projects have a sense of being intentional, planned events. Successful projects do not happen spontaneously; some amount of preparation and planning happens first. Finally, every project creates a unique product or service. This is the deliverable for the project and the reason that the project was undertaken. By now, you may realize that much of the work that goes on in the world is project work. If you schedule, track, or manage any of this work, then congratulations are in order: you are already doing some project management work! The project triangle: view projects in terms of time, cost, and scope You can visualize project work in many ways, but our favorite method is what is sometimes called the project triangle or triangle of triple constraints.

This theme has many variations, but the basic concept is that every project has some element of a time constraint, has some type of budget, and requires some amount of work to complete. (In other words, it has a defined scope.) The term constraint has a specific meaning in Project 2010, but here were using the more general meaning of a limiting factor. Lets consider these constraints one at a time. Time Have you ever worked on a project that had a deadline? (Maybe we should ask whether youve ever worked on a project that did not have a deadline.) Limited time is the one constraint of any project with which we are all probably most familiar. If youre working on a project right now, ask your team members to name the date of the project deadline. They might not know the project budget or the scope of work in great detail, but chances are they all know the project deadline. The following are examples of time constraints:

You are building a house and must finish the roof before the rainy season arrives. You are assembling a large display booth for a trade show that starts in two months. You are developing a new inventory-tracking system that must be tested and running by the start of the next fiscal year. Since we were children, we have been trained to understand time. We carry wristwatches, paper and electronic organizers, and other tools to help us manage time.

For many projects that create a product or event, time is the most important constraint to manage. Cost You might think of cost simply in monetary terms, but project cost has a broader meaning: costs include all of the resources required to carry out the project. Costs include the people and equipment that do the work, the materials they use, and all of the other events and issues that require money or someones attention in a project. The following are examples of cost constraints:

You have signed a fixed-price contract to deliver an inventory-tracking software system to a client. If your costs exceed the agreed-upon price, your customer might be sympathetic but probably wont be willing to renegotiate the contract.

The president of your organization has directed you to carry out a customer research project using only the staff and equipment in your department.

You have received a $5,000 grant to create a public art installation. You have no other funds. For virtually all projects, cost is ultimately a limiting constraint; few projects could go over budget without eventually requiring corrective action. Scope You should consider two aspects of scope: product scope and project scope. Every successful project produces a unique product: a tangible item or service. Customers usually have some expectations about the features and functions of products they consider purchasing. Product scope describes the intended quality, features, and functions of the product often in minute detail. Documents that outline this information are sometimes called product specifications. A service or event usually has some expected features as well. We all have expectations a bout what well do or see at a party, concert, or sporting event.

Project scope, on the other hand, describes the work required to deliver a product or service with the intended product scope. Project scope is usually measured in tasks and phases. The following are examples of scope constraints:

Your organization won a contract to develop an automotive product that has exact requirements for example, physical dimensions measured to 0.01 mm. This is a product scope constraint that will influence project scope plans.

You are constructing a building on a lot that has a height restriction of 50 feet. You can use only internal services to develop part of your product, and those services follow a product development methodology that is different from what you had planned. Product scope and project scope are closely related. The project manager who manages project scope well must also understand product scope or must know how to communicate with those who do. Time, cost, and scope: manage project constraints Project management gets most interesting when you must balance the time, cost, and scope constraints of your projects. The project triangle illustrates the process of balancing constraints because the three sides of the triangle are connected, and changing one side of a triangle affects at least one other side. The following are examples of constraint balance:

If the duration (time) of your project schedule decreases, you might need to increase budget (cost) because you must hire more resources to do the same work in less time. If you cannot increase the budget, you might need to reduce the scope because the resources you have cannot complete all of the planned work in less time.

If you must decrease a projects duration, make sure that overall project qualit y is not unintentionally lowered. For example, testing and quality control often occur last in a software development project; if project duration is decreased late in the project, those tasks might be the ones to suffer with cutbacks. You must weigh the benefits of decreasing the project duration against the potential downside of a deliverable with poorer quality.

If the budget (cost) of your project decreases, you might need more time because you cannot pay for as many resources or for resources of the same efficiency. If you cannot increase the time, you might need to reduce project scope because fewer resources cannot complete all of the planned work in the time remaining.

If you must decrease a projects budget, you could look at the grades of material resources for which you had budgeted. For example, did you plan to shoot a film in 35 mm when cheaper digital video would do? A lower-grade material is not necessarily a lower-quality material. As long as the grade of material is

appropriate for its intended use, it might still be of high quality. As another example, fast food and gourmet are two grades of restaurant food, but you may find high-quality and low-quality examples of each. You should also look at the costs of the human and equipment resources you have planned to use. Can you hire less experienced people for less money to carry out simpler tasks? Reducing project costs can lead to a poorer-quality deliverable, however. As a project manager, you must consider (or, more likely, communicate to the decision makers) the benefits versus the risks of reducing costs.

If your project scope increases, you might need more time or resources (cost) to complete the additional work. When project scope increases after the project has started, its called scope creep. Changing project scope midway through a project is not necessarily a bad thing; for example, the environment in which your project deliverable will operate may have changed or become clearer since beginning the project. Changing project scope is a bad thing only if the project manager doesnt recognize and plan for the new requirements that is, when other constraints (cost, time) are not correspondingly examined and, if necessary, adjusted. Time, cost, and scope are the three essential elements of any project. To succeed as a project manager, you should know quite a bit about how all three of these constraints apply to your projects.

Here is our final word about the project triangle model. Like all simple models of complex subjects, this model is a useful learning tool but not always a reflection of the real world. If real projects always performed as the project triangle suggests they should, you might see projects delivered late but at planned cost or with expected scope. Or, projects might be completed on time and with expected scope but at higher cost. In other words, youd expect to see at least one element of the project triangle come in as planned. But the sad truth is that many projects, even with rigorous project management oversight, are delivered late, over budget, and with far less than expected scope of functionality. Youve probably participated in a few such projects yourself. As you well know, project management is just plain difficult. Success in project management requires a rare mix of skills and knowledge about schedule practices and tools, as well as skill in the domain or industry in which a project is executed. Features Microsoft Project 2010 showing a simple Gantt chart .Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost, equal to the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level. Resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared between projects using a shared resource pool. Each resource can have its own calendar, which defines what days and shifts a resource is available. Resource rates are used to calculate resource assignment costs which are rolled up and summarized at the resource level. Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks in multiple plans and each task can be assigned multiple resources, and the application schedules task work based on the resource availability as defined in the resource calendars. All resources can be defined in label without limit. Therefore it cannot determine how many finished products can be produced with a given amount of raw materials. This makes Microsoft Project unsuitable for solving problems of available materials constrained production. Additional software is necessary to manage a complex facility that produces physical goods.

The application creates critical path schedules, and critical chain and event chain methodology third-party add-ons also are available. Schedules can be resource leveled, and chains are visualized in a Gantt chart. Additionally, Microsoft Project can recognize different classes of users. These different classes of users can have differing access levels to projects, views, and other data. Custom objects such as calendars, views, tables, filters, and fields are stored in an enterprise global which is shared by all users. Manage your projects with Project 2010 The best project management tool in the world can never replace your good judgment. However, the right tool can and should help you accomplish the following:

Track all of the information you gather about the work, duration, and resource requirements for your project.

Visualize your project plan in standard, well-defined formats. Schedule tasks and resources consistently and effectively. Exchange project information with stakeholders over networks and the Internet using standard file formats.

Communicate with resources and other stakeholders while leaving ultimate control in the hands of the project manager.

How to Use Microsoft Project 2010 to Resolve Resource Conflicts When a resource is over allocated, use Microsoft Project 2010 to ensure your project stays on track. With Microsoft Project 2010, you can resolve resource conflicts by modifying assignments, changing scheduling, and more. Consider the following tactics to resolve resource conflicts:

Revise the resource's availability to the project. For example, change the person's availability from 50 percent to 100 percent.

Modify assignments to take the resource off some tasks during the timeframe of the conflict. The new Team Planner view is great for this purpose.

Move a task to which the resource is assigned to a later date using the Move Task tool or modify the task's dependency relationships.

Add a second resource to a task for which the over allocated resource is busy. Change the task to auto scheduling and effort-driven, if needed, to allow the task to be completed sooner and free up the resource earlier.

Replace the resource with another on some tasks. Try the Resource Substitution Wizard for help with this if you're using Project Server.

Select a task and then click the Inspect button in the Tasks group of the Task tab. The factors driving the timing of the selected task are provided so you can take whatever steps are needed to address them: for example if a task dependency is driving timing and you can modify that dependency, it might solve your problem.

Make changes to the resource base calendar to allow the resource to work more time in a week.

Create a Project Schedule with Microsoft Project 2010 Creating a project schedule is easy with Microsoft Project 2010. Following are some handy steps to help you build a Microsoft Project schedule. After you complete the list, you're ready to start the project and track any progress on it. You can then report progress to management by using Microsoft Project reports, by simply printing your schedule, or by sharing it on the Web.

Enter project information (such as the start date). Set up your work calendar. Create tasks, choosing the scheduling method and task type settings and entering information about durations.

Create milestones (tasks with zero duration) in your project. Organize your tasks into phases, using Project's outline structure. Establish dependencies among tasks, adding constraints if appropriate. Create resources, assigning cost/rate and resource calendar information.

Assign resources to tasks. Resolve resource conflicts. Review the total duration and cost of the project, making adjustments if necessary. Set a baseline.

Managing Projects in Change point and Microsoft Project (linked to Change point) The Change point - Microsoft Project (MSP) interface is designed for organizations that currently use (perhaps as a company standard), or want to continue to use, Microsoft Project for their project-level planning. Change points bi-directional integration with MSP, which operates in real-time, shares extensive information with MSP in order that customers can continue to use MSP, and not have to re-enter any information in either solution. In this way, for example, a customers requirement for high -level planning and detailed task lists are supported through the combination of critical path scheduling from Microsoft Project, and the capture of actual time, task status, and cost information within Change point. However, Change point includes comprehensive Project, Portfolio, Demand and Resource Management and Budgeting capabilities that provide support and controls across the full project lifecycle without the need to use Microsoft Project. Standard functionality ranges from quick project creation to highly detailed Project and Budget Management. Project templates, configurable workflow, and integrated Knowledge Management are combined within Change point to ensure support for best practices, and to improve control of projects and communication across the organization. Highlights of the functionality provided by Change point project management include the following: Project templates and best practice sharing Project Workflow Management to ensure process adherence Project scheduling and graphical phase-level reporting and editing

Complete Budget Management with multiple budget revisions and Contingency Management Native task assignment, including timelines, dependencies and scheduled effort Inter-project dependencies Rich Change Management, project issue tracking, and risk identification and tracking Comprehensive resource management capabilities integrated with PPM, search/soft-book/hard-book Integrated survey capabilities to track customer satisfaction throughout the projects lifecycle Reporting on project progress, budget versus actual performance, project slippage, earned value analysis and project portfolio analysis Knowledge Management capabilities that allow files to be attached to the project record such as project charters, scope statements and product work

This section provides a summary look at some of the complementary functionality of managing projects using Change points native project management versus managing a project in Microsoft Project (linked to Change point). 1. As Microsoft Project is a scheduling tool, it will automatically adjust your plan to reflect the information you have given it. Depending on how you have built the plan and what information you enter, Microsoft project will change one or more of the following: The scheduled dates of a task (start and/or end) The planned work for a task The assigned number of units required to complete the task

In Change point you can track baseline, planned, actual, and forecasted task information but it doesn't automatically reschedule planned start/finish dates. Project Managers or resources can provide forecast start/finish dates and remaining hours. Forecast fields are different to planned and it is up-to a project manager to manually reschedule planned start/finish dates as well as planned hours. This is deliberate as it gives the project manager much more control over their projects.

2.

Microsoft

Project

supports

start-to-start,

start-to-finish

and

finish-to-finish

dependencies between tasks within the same project. Change point supports finish-tostart dependencies (with lag time) between tasks within the same project and across projects. 3. A single project in Change point can be updated by multiple plan editors by locking the appropriate tasks to preserve the integrity of the project. Multiple concurrent plan editors are not supported on single Microsoft Project plan. 4. Change point provides resource-specific and team-based calendars that display project- and calendar-based commitments for the resource. Project calendars are only available through the solutions integration with Microsoft Project. 5. Change point applies resource leveling at the task level, which means that all other committed work for the resource is taken into consideration, including items from other projects (and any other items that are configured as committed demand) and task assignments that have been updated but not yet saved in the current project worksheet. Microsoft Project performs resource load balancing and project leveling to remove any over-allocations but does not take into account a resources commitments on other projects or demand items. 6. Microsoft Project allows you to view project plans using PERT network diagrams. Change point doesnt currently support PERT network diagrams. When Would You Use MSP for Project Planning? - If you need PERT and Network diagrams - If you need the auto-scheduling capability - If you need additional dependencies over and above Start-Finish - If you must work offline (i.e. no access to the internet to access Change point) When Would You Use Change point for Project Planning?

- For anything else demand management integrated with project portfolio management and resource management with a workflow driven methodology and discipline. A customer may choose to initially use Microsoft Project to plan their project if they need to work offline (i.e. no access to the Change point solution over the internet). Once the project has been created they can then link the project to Change point and (a) continue to use Microsoft Project or (b) choose to break the link and use Change point to manage the project moving forward. At any time they can switch back to managing the project plan in Microsoft Project by simply re-establishing the link. This capability was demonstrated at the recent workshops in Oslo. A project manager relies upon a written plan to undertake a project of any significant size. Microsoft Project software contains the tools necessary to design a project from beginning to end, define milestones and then assign the needed resources to the tasks in order to complete the objectives. Any changes that arise may be entered into the project so that their impact may be evaluated well before the project gets off track. Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is a software product that enables you to visually plan for and track the stages of completion for business or personal projects. It is a complex tool that manages resources, tasks and deadlines as they are arranged to achieve intermediate stages of a final objective. Projects are modeled using the Critical Path Method (CPM) which works especially well with interdependent activities. Microsoft Project is available in both standard and professional versions. Planning a Project The initial step in using Project is the planning stage. Before resources can be allocated and scheduled, the full scope of the project must be defined and entered in the software. The objectives, assumptions and deadlines are used to initiate a new project file. Each of these aspects of the project frame the scope of what is to be accomplished.

When the planning stage is complete, the next step is to define the resources and allocate them. Allocating Resources As the full scope of the project becomes clear, Microsoft Project enables you to allocate resources and total the cost of utilizing those resources. Each resource, human and otherwise, has defined limits and a cost. For example, a programmer is available for work eight hours a day, five days a week. These limits are enforced by the software as the resource is allocated to an objective. If the task requires 80 hours from the programmer, the availability limits will require two weeks before an objective's deadline can be met. Project Tracking Once a project is underway, Microsoft Project provides a variety of tools to track its progress. In its basic form, the software arranges the details in a Gantt chart. Each intermediate deadline and task can be reviewed to track its progress. You, as the project manager, control what priorities are most important in evaluating each objective. As an example, the priority for one task may be budgetary, and for another, the deadline is critical and slippage may be the most important issue. As the software updates with new inputs, the effect on the entire project is immediately known. Projects, Their Outcomes and Project Management

Projects are efforts to achieve objectives, within finite time and cost expectations. Projects are contrasted with operational activities the repetitive things performed regularly over time. In some way the dividing line between projects and operational activities is not clear; often an operational activity is a series of small projects. However, what is clear is, healthy projects have a finite end that is reached either when the project objectives have been met or when the project is cancelled.

In this paper the term outcome will be used to mean any project result, whether it is a new or changed product, event or process. Projects produce outcomes like newly design car models, an annual budget, a great party, or a new procedure. The use of the outcome and its value after the project delivers it are the underlying justification for the project. It is the application of a broad set of skills to properly initiate, plan, execute, control and close a project. The primary skills are scoping (i.e., describing and agreeing on project objectives and requirements), scheduling, and estimating. Added to these core skills are managing risk and uncertainty, managing quality, communicating, managing ourselves, and collaborating with others, including suppliers of goods and services and everyone else who works on or is affected by the project. The people who are involved or interested in a project are referred to as stakeholders.

To put projects and project management into practical context, it is useful to take a systems view. This view recognizes that everything is operating in a system of interacting people, organizations, things and processes. Change or activity anywhere can have an effect elsewhere. The more one can predict the effect, the greater one's control of the system's performance. In complex systems, no one can ever predict the effect of actions with 100% accuracy. A project is a complex system. Project management itself is also a complex system.

Figure 1, below, is a picture of project management as a system. The Unified Project Management Methodology (UPMM) is one of many views in use today to describe the various activities in managing projects.

A single project is managed from Originating, the time someone communicates an idea that may someday become a project, through Closing, the completion of the project, if in fact the project becomes a project and is completed.

Surrounding the performance of a single project are activities that support and direct the organization and its ability to perform multiple projects in a complex, changing environment. These activities include Ongoing Improvement, the effort to learn from past experience and improve the way you perform and manage projects; Portfolio Management & Governance, the decision making needed to select, initiate and continue the right projects and to manage the optimum use of scarce resources; and Multi-project Management, the process for looking across all of the projects being performed and managing them as a group to avoid conflicts and promote synergy.

Effective portfolio management and multi-project management are among the most critical factors for successful projects. They address many of the root causes of chronic problems in projects, such as the chronic over burdening of resources and constant priority shifts that create confusion and impact productivity.

Collaboration and Consulting represents the critical need for teamwork, communication, coordination and the management of knowledge and information. Not managing projects the right way leads to unnecessary rework and costs, delays, unsatisfied customers and hostile relationships. Think about the times that you or your customers have been impacted by late delivery of project results or by having to do unnecessary rework or by having yourself and others affected by confusion and chaos that could have been avoided by better project planning and control. Think about the time, effort and money that could have been saved. Think about the relations that were disrupted, in some cases irreparably so. In the unlikely case that you have no personal experience, think about high profile projects like the Challenger space shuttle in which poor project management practices led to loss of life or the Big Dig in Boston in which poor project planning, communications or control resulted in huge costs and delivery delays. The importance of Project Management Projects are the means to achieve business objectives. They, along with ongoing operations represent the activities that make organizations run. They deliver the goods and services that satisfy customers and owners. All organizations have projects. A project may be a large task or a complex activity, in fact, any work that is done to achieve an objective on time and within budget.

When you change the way people work, you are managing a project. When you launch a new product you are managing a project. Projects are ideas in motion. They may be efforts to move an office full of people to another location, put on an event, merge two organizations, institute a new training program, put together a budget, create a new product, change or produce a web site, put a new process into place, etc.

More and more people recognize that their ability to effectively manage projects is now key to their success within the organization. The ability to better manage projects is a way to achieve the edge over competitors and deliver greater value to owners and

customers.Project management is a complex discipline. It requires years of hands-on experience and of study. There are techniques to learn and tools to master.

Microsoft Project software is one of those tools. With this short tutorial we want to introduce you to the software in its most elementary form. Even though we'll be covering only the basic application of MS project, we hope that you will gain an appreciation of its many capabilities and will be drawn to study it in more depth afterwards. Defining the project Start by defining the properties of the project that you are going to manage. You need to know the start date and the basic operating rules of the organization.

First: break the whole project into individual tasks. This may not be as easy as it sounds. You want the tasks to be small enough to be manageable but, not so small as to involve the atomic level. This will draw on the experience of the project manager. Normally, a task involves one person or a small group of people over a span of time that can be measured in days.

Don't worry that the tasks all last 1 day and start on the same day. We'll get to that later. Now, you will probably want to group tasks under phases. In MS Project, grouping is done from the top down with Final total at the very top, with Subtotals below and so on.

How to effectively track progress For over 40 years project manages have been using techniques to manage their projects effectively. Some of these techniques were manual to begin with and were later computerized Two of those techniques were called Critical Path Management (CPM) and Program Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT). They were similar and you will now often find the technique referred to as: CPM/PERT. The technique involves using network models to trace the links between tasks and to identify the tasks which are critical to meeting the deadlines. When you have a large number of tasks overlapping you really have to use the right tool to show which tasks can be delayed and which must be on time.

Once you've identified the critical path, any delay on any part of the critical path will cause a delay in the whole project. It is where managers must concentrate their efforts. In MS Project, you use the Tracking Gantt diagram to show the critical path in red and you can see the PERT diagram by looking at the Network view.

Finally for this section, you'll want to track the degree of completion of each of the tasks. You could do that every day as you go along. As soon as something starts to go off track, you can react and adjust accordingly. It would be too long to go into the details of how to compensate for delays and so on. Get a good book on the subject and we'll call that Graduate School.

How to manage the project resources You will need people to accomplish all those tasks that you've identified in the previous section. Those people are resources that you have to manage well in order to achieve the project's objectives you may also need some material resources - equipment, supplies, specialized environments - that you will have to schedule and pay for. You can easily include the management of resources in MS Project along with the tasks because, after all, the resources are essential to the accomplishment of the tasks in the first place. You must start by identifying the resources available along with their costs. Resource costs will be multiplied by duration to calculate project costs. You have to open the Resource sheet to specify the project resources and costs.

To track costs, you insert a Cost column next to the Resources column. When you assign the resources to each task, the costs will be calculated a displayed.

You assign resources, people or material, to each of the tasks. A task may have several resources.

That completes this rather quick tutorial on Microsoft Project Of course, there are many, many other things that MS Project can do. We have barely scratched the surface. For example, we have assumed so far that everything will proceed as planned. But what if it doesn't? There are many functions to help you deal with delays, cost overruns, etc. You can learn how to schedule overtime split or overlap tasks and on and on.

Real life Project of ComoYo (Telenor) on MS Project Office

Telenor Broadcast has introduced a new consumer-facing online content aggregator brand. Designed as a one-stop portal that mixes video streaming, music streaming and multimedia services like cloud storage, the Comoyo service will offer content from existing content partners but will have a larger catalogue than the Canal Digital Go multi-screen service. Making an active move into the Internet space Comoyos initial focus will be on the Nordic markets, but global expansion is on the agenda for the future. Telenor has witnessed extreme growth in the adoption of Internetbased services globally, which over time could serve as a disruption to the traditional telecommunication business model. Either you can move backwards or you can start moving forward, exploring new roads. Typical challenges in the telecom sector are Internet-based services such as voice, messaging and TV. All of these areas are potentially disruptive technologies, and rather than sitting around and talking about the disruption, we are joining the action says Sven. Comoyo delivers the solutions that entertain you, let you communicate with your friends and store the content you care about. The company offers an Internet one-stop-shop for consumers on all devices and is currently working towards a closed beta. Comoyo was established in 2011 and is a global company, owned by Telenor.

The company launched market-by-market in the Nordics, starting with Norway. Streaming video from Comoyo is available for the TV, phone, PC, tablets and connected TVs. Some of the video from Canal Digitals content partners will be available free as part of their existing Pay TV subscription. Offering premium film and TV experiences online, Comoyos goal is to make life on the Internet easier, richer and more fun. In line with this philosophy, the Digital Services Company recently launched a live web-chat support for its customers. Comoyo has an agile approach when it comes to product development and implementation. Services are typically first launched in beta versions and rely on customer feedback and insights. The project is of two months.