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Define: Deadline Date

Deadline: A date associated with a task’s finish date, after which an indicator appears in the ‘Information’ column of Microsoft Project.

 

Microsoft Project allows you to set a deadline date for each task in an MPP project file.  This date is closely linked to the task’s finish date.  See the link below to set a deadline for a task.

http://www.projectteamblog.com/?p=43

 

I prefer deadline dates to task constraints.  They are simple and informal, and do not affect downline task dependancies.  In other words, they simply show a red symbol next to the task rather than affecting the starting dates of other tasks.

 

But honestly, Microsoft Project® is not as elegant as Standard Time® when it comes to time-related things.  It has no timesheet, and cannot accurately track employee hours for tasks.  Obviously, there is an ‘Actual Work’ column, but has no effective way to fill it. Standard Time® is much better suited for that purpose, and it has a task deadline feature as well.

 

–ray

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How To: Filter Tasks in MS Project

Ever wonder how to reduce your Microsoft Project file from thousands of tasks down to a manageable few hundred, without deleting any?  Have you tried filtering?  This post discusses the steps to filter tasks in Microsoft Project.

Filtering is the act of reducing the number of visible tasks so that you only see what you are interested in.  All the tasks will still exist in the MPP file, but you will only see tasks that correspond to your filter criteria.  Follow these steps to filter tasks in Microsoft Project.

Create some tasks to filter by:

  1. Enter three tasks
  2. Set the durations to 10 hours, 20 hours, and 0 hours
  3. The results should look like the image below

 

 

 

Set up a new filter to show long tasks only:

  1. Choose Project, Filtered, More Filters…
  2. Click New
  3. Enter the name “Long tasks” (without the quotes)
  4. Click ‘Show in menu’
  5. Click in the ‘Field Name’ column, and choose ‘Duration
  6. Click in the ‘Test’ column and choose ‘is greater than’
  7. Click in the ‘Values(s)’ column and enter 10
  8. Click OK to save the new filter
  9. Nothing should change in your view

 

Activate your task filter:

  1. Choose Project, Filtered, Long Tasks (the new filter you created)
  2. Your view should now look like this image (hiding all the short tasks)
  3. Choose Project, Filtered, All Tasks to remove the filtering and show all tasks

 

 

 

–ray

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Why Resource Leveling is Old School

On the surface, resource leveling looks appealing.  It offers the ability to spread work out so that an employee never has too little and never has too much.  Sounds good, right?  Maybe not…  Read on and let me know what you think.

The problem I have stems from the term resource itself.  Some of my customers won’t even use the word because it turns employees into machines.  Are “resources” human beings?  No, they are just “things” to be used.

I don’t go that far with my interpretation.  I’m okay with the word “resource.”  I know what it means, and what it doesn’t mean.  But still, when software attempts to tell the employee when to work, something is wrong.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Spreading work around (as is in resource leveling) removes the human element from the project.  It turns employees into machines who crank out project hours, task after task after task with no regard to content.  One task is the same as another, right?

I’m sorry; people don’t work that way.  Machines do.  They love steady work.  Give them something to do, and they will churn it out day after day.  People work differently; they are diven by passions and love for the job.  They get excited about one task, and then another.  They schedule them in order of passion for the task at hand.  No passion – no work.

As soon as you allow software to tell your people when to come and go, the passion is gone.  Make sense?

 

–ray

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Define: Earned Value

Earned Value: The amount of money a project has already earned, based on percent complete.

Calculating earned value will let you know approximately how much money is in the bag.  Obviously, it has to pass through the Accounts Receivable department, but eventually the money will be there.  This scheme works well for projects where money tightly follows work.  In other words, you do the work, and the money follows soon after.  While that’s often true of service-based companies like consultancies, it is not always true of manufacturing projects.

When a company manufactures goods, there is a much longer pipeline to cash.  Money does not tightly follow work.  You develop the product, test it, manufacture it, test it again, market it, sell it, and then your customer pays.  That process can take months or years.  So earned value is not as tangible.  And, there is the upside of selling the same design for several years.

Standard Time® calculates earned value based on Actual Work times the Client Rate.  Obviously, this is very tightly connected to the work you perform.  Every hour means billable time.  For consultancies, this matches reality pretty closely.

–ray

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How To: Set Working Time in MS Project

Microsoft Project offers calendars that can be used to set the working hours for a project and the resources working on it.  In other words, you can set the base calendar for the project, and then override that with resource work times.  This post discusses how to set the working time in Microsoft Project.

The following steps will illustrate the effect that working time has on a task in a Microsoft Project file.

Set up a new task:

  1. Enter a new task
  2. Enter 8 hours for the Duration
  3. Enter your Name as the Resource
  4. You will notice that the task occupies one day  See below.

 

 

 

To change the base calendar for the project:

  1. Choose Tools, Change Working Time
  2. Choose “Standard (Project Calendar) from the dropdown
  3. Hold down the control key and select all the working days of the month
  4. Remove the 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM hours (to make half days)
  5. Notice that the calendar has changed to show your new choices
  6. Click OK, and notice that your task Gantt bar has gotten longer to accommodate the fewer hours per day.

 

 

To change the individual work hours for the resource:

  1. Choose Tools, Change Working Time
  2. Choose your name from the dropdown
  3. Click on the second day of the task
  4. Hold the control key down and select three days
  5. Click the “Nonworking time” choice to signify a vacation
  6. Click OK, and notice that the task has gotten every longer

 

 

–ray

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Why Enterprise Software Must Be Sexy

I’m going to put in my two cents regarding the sexification of enterprise software.  The argument of whether enterprise software needs to be sexy (to keep up with consumer products) is still on the table.  See the CIO article below.  I vote “Yes” and here’s why…

CIO article by Brian Watson: Newer innovations like software as a service, Web 2.0 and mobile applications are broadly available to those outside the IT department. For those consumers of business software, freshness and flash are key selling points.
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Foreward/Why-Enterprise-Software-Must-Be-Sexy/

Enterprise apps are made to serve a specific purpose.  They track project time (like Standard Time®) or access human resource records (like SAP®), or any number of specific jobs.  People use them every day, and their value lies in the depth of service they provide.  Apps that do a lot, command the big bucks.  Try to replace them, and you’ll have a huge battle.

But still, people have to use them every day.  And if they don’t like them, they gripe.  That huge battle to replace them suddenly looks pretty small compared to dealing with unhappy employees.   No big app can last forever in the face of employee dissatisfaction, regardless of its value in the enterprise.

And guess what?

All those employees have consumer items they compare the enterprise apps to.  Cell phones, big screen TV’s, PDA’s, cordless phones, etc.  They begin to expect the big enterprise apps to employ some of the sexy usability enhancements they find in their personal consumer items.

Think about it…  Would you rather use an enterprise app with 80’s-style “VCR” controls or those of your cool new MP3 player?  That’s why enterprise apps need to be sexy.

 

–ray

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Outsourcing: Buying Time

For product development teams, outsourcing almost always means “buying time.”  Every project has three aspects in contant tension: Time, Cost, Quality.

1. If you want to save time and get your product to market faster, you can pay more (cost) or make a smaller product (quality).

2. If you want to spend less money, you can delay the delivery date (time) or cut features (quality).

3. If you want a high quality product, you can spend more money (cost) or wait for it to mature (time).

Outsourcing clearly cost’s money.  So why do it?  To get your product to market faster, that’s why.  You are spending the money now, so that you can recouperate it earlier.  Beat the competition to market.

No?  You’re not doing it for that reason?  You’re using India as a cut-rate development shop?  Oops, that may be a mistake.  Remember the other aspects in constant tension?  Quality is one of them…

 

–ray

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Define: Critical Path

Critical Path: A series of tasks that extend a project to its longest finish date.  Tasks that depend upon previous tasks, causing a project to finish at the latest time.

 

A project’s critical path is your longest route from start to finish.  In other words, your project cannot be finished any quicker than through this series of tasks.  Eliminate or shorten some tasks, and your project will be completed sooner.

It is valuable to analyze a project’s critical path.  Sometimes you can offload tasks to other resources, effectively shortening it.  In essence, you are turning a series circuit into a parallel circuit with multiple paths.  Any time you can do this, you are trading time for resources.  Yes, it will cost more, but you’ll finish sooner.

Consider a simple project with 1,000 hours of work, all performed by a single person.  The critical path is that single-path sequence of tasks.  Task 1, then 2, then 3, and so on…  You get the idea.

What if you added another person who could do the same work?  The project would then be completed in 500 hours, utilizing two paths.  But do you have a second person?

This is the crux of project management – juggling time, resources, and cost to maximize productivity.  Quite a game, huh?  🙂

–ray

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How to: Level Resources in Microsoft Project

This post discusses how to perform resource leveling in Microsoft Project.  Before we perform the steps, we should first define resource leveling.

Resource leveling is the act of moving project tasks so that employees are not over allocated.  In other words, tasks are moved to new dates so they are not all piled on top of each other.  This ensures that resources have steady work without gaps and without excessive demand.

Microsoft Project can perform a one-time leveling, or automatically perform it each time a task is changed.  Normally, resource leveling is most effective for projects that have tasks with constraints.  For instance, a task may be set to ‘Start No Earlier Than’ a certain date.  This constraint forces the task to start after a specified date.  Other tasks may need to be split to start before and after this task.  In fact, the example below demonstrates this exact scenario.

 

First, setup a new project:

  1. Create two new tasks
  2. Add resources to the tasks
  3. Set the task durations
  4. The tasks should look like the image below

 

 

Set a task constraint:

  1. Drag the first task to the right so it overlaps the second task
  2. Notice the task icon in the information column
  3. Double-click on the task to see the Task Information dialog
  4. Click the Advanced tab to see the task constraint

 

 

Level the tasks:

  1. Choose Tools, Level Resources
  2. Click Level Now
  3. The results will be a split task that allows the resource to work before and after the first task.

 

 

–Newshirt

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Diamond Cutting

The four C’s of diamond cutting are Color, Clarity, Caret, and Cut.  Every stone is judged on these characteristics, and the price set accordingly.  My assertion is that these qualities also apply to the art of product development.  Engineers and Product Managers, listen up!  The value of products for your customers follows the same principles as cutting and polishing a beautiful stone.  Indulge me, and I’ll explain.

1. Color.  People expect beauty in the products they use, and will always choose a pleasing product to an ugly one.  This aspect of project development refers to the almost imperceptable touches of style you add to your work.  As left-brain engineers, we often overlook this.

2. Clarity.  Have you applied a ‘usability test’ to your product?  How clear is it?  How easy is it to navigate and complete the basic tasks?  Consider using a digital camera to study people using your product.  You’ll learn a lot about clarity and usability.

Polish: Refers to any blemishes on the surface of the diamond which are not significant enough to affect the clarity grade of the diamond. Examples of blemishes that might be considered as ‘polish’ characteristics are faint polishing lines and small surface nicks or scratches. Polish is regarded as an indicator of the quality of as diamond’s cut; it is graded as either Ideal, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair or Poor.

3. Caret.  Is your product full-featured?  Is there a lot of value?  Consider building it out to offer more for the money.  But listen closely to customers before launching into your build-out program.  Find out what they want, and add only those features.

4. Cut.  There a dozens of ways to present a product (i.e. cut the product features for use).  Choose an ugly one, and customers will look elsewhere.  They want new ways to approach their problems.  After all, they have exhausted all the conventional wisdom, and are looking to you to solve the real jawbreakers.  Do it, and they will reward you.

 

–ray