MS project help

This week will be a bit less demanding, for the most part, I’m thinking (hoping).

• You will be reviewing the network diagram view in MSP (essentially auditing your task dependencies).

• You will be creating a critical path view and capturing that in a PDF or XPS file (easy peasy)

•  You will be submitting your latest and greatest version of your Microsoft project plan so I can see your network diagram and Gantt chart directly, and double check you have updated it as required, and that all tasks are “auto scheduled.” Not “manually scheduled,”       And no task is “constrained”  (look in the Task Mode column for the icon). 

• You will be writing and an essay on balancing scope, schedule, and budget.  Pretty straightforward stuff

Over in Doc share is an Essay template I want you to use for this week’s essay. 

Week-3 Assignment Descriptions

Assignment 1 Network Diagram

This week the Course Architect wants you to review your network diagram. Personally, I hate the things! In part because in a nontrivial project they are huge, I mean immense, I mean humongous (did I mention large?). So, navigating them is a real challenge (printing them is even worse unless you LIKE scotch tape and wall-sized charts!). And in part, because I can get all the same information from the Gantt Chart.  Nonetheless, you need to review it to see if the task dependencies (represented by the lines between the boxes) are what you want. You will be submitting your updated Microsoft project file (.MPP), so I can verify reasonable task dependencies are present and I will be looking at that same information.

You will be submitting your Microsoft project plan as:

• Week3_MSProjectPlan_yourlastname_vn.mpp  (Where “vn” is your version number as in – Week3_MSProjectPlan_George_v1.mpp”)

Point value 25 points

Assignment 2 Critical Path View PDF

In Microsoft project, the default Gantt Chart is highly customizable!  You can do all kinds of things with it (and we will be making use of that functionality as we move through our course project). This week, you will be adding a filter to the Gantt view to show just your critical path.

• To make sure we are starting at the same place fire up MSP and go the Gantt chart view. Then select the View tab and you should see in the ribbon at the top of the screen a group called “Data.“

• In the data group part of the ribbon, there are such functions as Sort, Outline, Tables, etc. There is a pulldown list called Filter. By default, it says No Filter

• Click on the No Filter pulldownlist and you will see as an option “Critical” (meaning the critical path). Select that entry.

• The Gantt chart will now show only those tasks on the critical path. (too cool!, Yes?!)

• To create a PDF of your filtered Gantt chart you just need to select File then Export then click on the PDF button just like you did last week.

• Attach that PDF to your drop box with a name of

• Week3_MSProjectPlan Critical Path View yourlastname.pdf

• Point value 0 points (if submitted)

• Point value -5 points (if not submitted)