This is the last article of this series highlighting common incorrect uses of Microsoft Project. The images are built using the Microsoft Project 2013 Pro edition, but this series can be useful for all versions of the product. This article will be about setting a status date.
Flaw #1: Date-Related Planning
Flaw #2: Capacity as Activity
Flaw #3: Lack of Structure (Work Breakdown Structure)
Flaw #4: Too Much Detail in the Schedule
Flaw #5: Not Using the Baseline Functionality
Flaw #6: Using Predecessors in Summary Tasks
You, the planner of projects, will almost certainly build schedules for an organization. Therefore you are not alone – comforting thought right? There is a team working on that project, maybe you are the project manager, or a member of a PMO (Project management organization) or maybe you are the MS Project guru and people just know how to find you and build schedules the right way. In any case you are the go-to guy when they want an update of the schedule.
What’s your status?
What happens to your schedule when you close the application MS Project? The project happens!
The real work is done within your company (or with third parties) and there is real progress. We need to update the schedule regularly. But what happens when you win a lottery, or when you take a long vacation? The schedule should still be edited, but who knows what the last update date was?
With the Status date you can make it really clear for everyone what your status (date) is. This is because it is a fixed date you manually change when you update a schedule. By using the tips on this Microsoft page you will be able to view the status date in a different perspective, making it more tangible.
A status date can also be used in reports to show management. It will be quite clear to them that something is wrong when a status date hasn’t been changed in months…
In the screenshot the red line is the status date, the green line is the current date.
This article was originally published on Erik van Hurck’s website, The Project Corner. You can visit his website for more helpful tips.
Bill Dow
Erik van Hurck
Chris Rose
Ray Almonte
Erik van Hurck
Ray, There is no functionality to add more than 1 status date by default. If there would be an option I would be hesitant in using it, because the question arises: “what is your REAL status?”
Could you give a user case where you would like to have more than 1 status date?
Ray Almonte
Mark M. Webster
Gilbert Thibeau
Another way to think of it — to the left of the line shows Actual dates, to the right of the line shows scheduled / calculated / estimated dates.
Erik van Hurck
I completely agree.
Ray, The data should always be the same, if you draw an extra line in it that doesn’t change the status. You can not say “stake holder 1, this is your status. Stake holder 2, here’s yours”.
Thank you all for the kind remarks and additions,
Erik
Guillaume Rouyre
Your advice is really the key basis to start with. No need to start doing complicated reports and computation if the project is not up to date. This could lead to data misinterpretation such as EV as Mark mentionned.
“Garbage in, garbage out”!
Erik van Hurck
It’s nice to read all the comments, every one seems to agree about the need for the status date.
I believe it’s a bit like baselines: every one knows it is best to use them, but we seem to “forget” about is in practice…
Kind regards,
Erik