Author: Ellen Lehnert

Ellen Lehnert, PMP, Microsoft Project MVP, MCP, is a independent consultant and trainer on Microsoft Project and Project Server. She has taught Microsoft Project over 400 times and is the author of  MS Project 2010 and 2013 published courseware. Ellen is also a contributor and tech editor for many reference books, a developer for the Microsoft Project certification tests and is a frequent meeting speaker for Microsoft, MPUG and PMI. Contact Ellen at ellen@lehnertcs.com.

Ask the Experts: Working Offline in Project Server 2010

Fran from Houston, TX asks: I’m working with Microsoft Project Server 2010, and at times I’d like to download a project from the server and work with it offline, make changes, and bring it back online at a future time. Can I do this? Ellen answers: In Project Server 2010 this is possible, but you need to follow the steps below to download the project, make modifications, and then upload the project again correctly. First, you’ll have to take a project “offline.”In this processthe project is stored in the cache on the computer you’re using to take it offline. 1. Open Project Professional. 2. Open the project schedule you wish to take offline. 3. Make any changes you want to make and publish the changes: File | Publish. To take the project schedule offline: 1. File | Info | Manage Accounts | Work Offline. 2. File | Close. 3. Specify”Save” the file;”Keep project checked out”; andclick OK. 4. Close and exit Project Professional. Next, you’ll want to work with the project schedule offline. 1. Open Project Professional and connect in offline mode. To do this, select the Project Server in the Profile. (I’ve used the itprojects2 server as shown in this figure.) 2. Click “Work Offline.” To confirm offline mode, check the indicator in the lower left corner of the screen. That red x on the World image shows that you’re offline. Since the files have been taken offline, you’ll be working on the cached or memory-stored version of the project schedule. This is the only version of the schedule that can be brought back online. To open the project schedule to make changes: 1. Click File | Open. 2. Click on the project schedule to open. 3. Click Open. With the project schedule open you may create tasks and develop the project schedule, assign existing resources to tasks, and add local resources to the Resource Sheet. When you’ve checked out a project, nobody else can check it out at the same time or make changes. However, note that the Project Server administrator can override the checked out state, at which time all of the changes made to the offline project will be lost. In Project Server there’s a single copy of each project, and all changes are made to that one copy. After you’ve made your changes, save and close the project schedule: 1. File | Save. 2. File | Close. Here’s a crucial point: Don’t check in the Project schedule. Just close Project Professional. To bring an offline project back online, use these steps. 1. Open Project Professional and connect to Project Server. 2. Make sure that the lower right corner indicates that you’re connected to the server: 3. File | Open. 4. Select the project plan and clickOpen. Don’t double-click to retrieve projects from the server. Offline changes will automatically synchronize to the server. 1. Click File | Save. 2. Optionally, click File | Publish. Voila! You’ve made your changes to a project in offline mode and added the project back to the server for others to access.

Ask the Experts: Similar Task Names

Delin, Harold, and Michael of Kalamazoo, MI, ask: In MS Project 2010 desktop, we will be managing several projects using a Master project. We noticed that since each project used some of the same task names, when we combined projects, it was hard to tell which task belonged to which project. Any suggestions? John of Indianapolis asked: I use the same task name in multiple sections of the same project. How can I know which Summary task the Detail task is related to Ellen answers: You have a few choices of how to handle this situation. You might choose a combination of solutions. Below are a few suggestions.  1) Create a customized WBS code for each project using an abbreviation of each project within the customized code. To create a customized WBS code: For all levels of MS Project: Click on Project| WBS| Define code. After you have defined the WBS code, you may insert the WBS column into any tasks table or add the WBS code to the task name field. Using MS Project 2010: Click on Format| Outline number. Using MS Project 2007 or earlier: Click on Tools| Options| View| Show Outline Number. 2) Make the task names unique by including more description as well as the project name. Most people feel this is a lot of work and makes the task descriptions too long, so it might not be the best solution for the problem, but it remains an option. 3) Add the field “Project” to task tables. This field contains the same project name that is held in the Project Summary task for the project. It is also the same name that will be used as the title on reports. Determine if this field can be used or if the name is too long to be added as a column for reports. 4) Create a project short-name field and populate the column with an abbreviated project name. This option will create an alternate field that could be inserted into task tables, reports, and views. To create a customized field: Using MS Project 2010: Click on Project| Customized fields. Using MS Project 2007 or earlier: Click on Tools| Customize| Fields. The box below will appear. Click on Text1 (or any unused text field). Click on Rename. Enter the new field name “Project Short Name” Click OK to close the Rename box. After the field is created, it may be populated with the abbreviated project name. This new field of “Project Short Name” can be added to any Task view, including the Task Usage view, to indicate which project is the source of an assignment. The field can also be used to group and filter the tasks as needed. Carrying it one step further, you can also combine the Project Short Name field and the Task “Name” field into one field and use the new field as a substitute for Task Name on any task reports, views, tables, etc. To create this combined field, repeat the steps indicated above to create a new field called “ProjShortName & Task” With the “ProjShortName & Task” field name selected: Click on Formula to open the Formula box. Click in the Formula box. Click on the Field button below the box. Select Text. Select Custom Text. Select “Project Short Name.” (The field will move inside the formula box.) Click the “+” sign button. Type “:  ” (double quote, colon, 2 spaces, double quote). Click the “+” sign button. Select Text. Select Name. Click OK to close the box. The formula will look like the view below. The fields that have been created are native to the files they have been created in. Copy the fields between files using the Organizer. NOTE: In MS Project 2010 there is an option to automatically place created objects in the Global.mpt. This option refers to views, tables, filters, and groups only. To use the Organizer to copy the field objects from one project to another and into the Global.mpt: Using MS Project 2010: Click on: File| Info| Organizer| Fields. Using MS Project 2007 or earlier: Click on: Tools| Organizer| Fields. After combining the files, insert the “ProjShortName & Task” field into a table. Note that the tasks are not indented for the WBS, but you can clearly see the source for each task. NOTE: Many users also have the situation of using the same task name in multiple sections of the same project. A customized field could be created called Summary Task Name and then populated with the names of the summary tasks used in the project. When the field is added to the task name you will get both values in the same column. The column can be used to substitute the Task Name column for reporting.  

Ask the Experts: A Successful EPM Implementation Has More than Technology

Jim from Denver asks: My management has asked me to implement Microsoft Project Server and to have 500 people entering time by the end of the month to get resource allocations. We have installed the software. What do I need to do to accomplish this? Ellen answers: Wow! That is quite a requirement — and probably impossible to meet. Sadly, this is not an unusual request. Microsoft Project Server isn’t a “plug-and-play” type of application. Project Server will help an organization manage projects across an organization, but it’s very different from managing projects using Excel or Word. Below are listed some dynamics that will need to be considered when approaching an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) implementation. What are your goals for the usage of EPM? Your implementation will be successful if you could gain specifically what information from using the software? Enterprise project management software will help you manage projects using your process for managing projects. EPM won’t manage the projects for you. Are your users trained in project management concepts and do they understand project management terminology such as WBS, baseline, relationships, or tracking? Your project managers will use EPM more efficiently when they have an understanding of the lingo of project management. For project managers to be successful in using EPM software, they should understand creating a work breakdown structure, assigning resources to tasks, and managing a project to a schedule. What are their current skills in this area You can expect better results when your project managers achieve these skills. Project isn’t a product that lends itself well to self-training. Many project managers use Project, but only at a surface level. When using EPM, project managers must have a deeper understanding of Project. Just because you have smart people working for your organization doesn’t mean they’re smart in the process and usage of EPM. Training can’t be ignored — it is one of the major success factors. What is the existing project management culture at your organization today? Are you using Excel to manage projects now Will the users accept the visibility of the status of their projects — and the accountability — within the organization? How will your project managers accept and buy into the change in the project management process? How will EPM affect the culture at your organization, and will change management be needed to help gain acceptance and buy-in? Does the organization have the technical expertise to handle EPM and its maintenance requirements? If not, how can you obtain that knowledge? Do you have management support? Management should be involved every step of the way and support the progress points while heading toward goals. These are some of the questions (and challenges) that need to be answered within organizations wanting to implement EPM. Consider the road to full enterprise project management a journey while taking small steps to get to your goal. Management can’t push the user base to achieve goals faster than their skills will allow them to progress. Deploying Microsoft Project Server today won’t solve existing problems tomorrow. An EPM implementation is a project in itself and should be treated as a project and not an instant solution. EPM is a way of accumulating data to make better decisions regarding projects. But it takes time for users to accumulate the data (within a set of rules) before the data will be viable for decision making.

Ask the Experts: Tying Tasks and Assignments across Projects

Abhishek asks: I’m doing scheduling for multi-tower projects. Is there any way to see the resource usage for a particular tower? Ellen answers: The way you create and manage this project will determine the type of reporting you’ll be able to derive from your schedule. Here are a few suggestions for getting the information you’re looking for. From your question I would assume that resources are shared among the work needed for each tower. Assuming you’re using multiple projects and creating a Master project with inserted projects, you could use a shared resource pool. Resources are entered once and then shared over the multiple projects. The assignments then could be viewed on the Resource Usage view, and all tasks from the various projects will be shown. Start with one project schedule. To show the tower number that a resource is working on for a task and all assignments for a tower, you’ll need to create a customized task text or number field called Tower No. To create the customized field: Using Microsoft Project 2010, click on Project | Customized fields | Task | Text1 | Rename | Tower Number. You could click on Lookup table and enter the numbers of the towers. Using Microsoft Project 2007 and earlier, click on Tools | Customize | Fields | Task | Text1 | Rename | Tower Number. You could click on Lookup table and enter the numbers of the towers. The next step would be to insert the Tower No. column in a task table and populate the column with the tower that each task applies to. After the Tower numbers have been entered it will look like this: Note: Copy the customized field Tower No. into Global.mpt to allow it to be available to all of the projects and for use in the Master file. Project 2010 has an option to automatically update the Global.mpt with all customized fields. While viewing the Task Usage view in each project, insert the Tower No. column into the view. (Right click on a column heading, select Insert Column, and name it Tower No.). As you can see in the view below, the Tower No. will only appear on the Summary task line. Copy the Tower number to the resource assignments as shown below. As a result of this the assignment for a given resource will be associated with a tower number he or she is working on. Once this is done, reporting on the assignments by tower will be possible. Repeat these steps for all of the projects, then combine the projects: Using Project 2010, click on Project | Subproject | select project name | Insert. Using Project 2007 and earlier, click on Insert | Project | select project name | Insert. When projects are combined, the Tasks Usage view will show all of the assignments for the inserted projects. Make sure the Tower No. column has been inserted into the view. You might need to insert the original column name and change the column title when viewing from the Master file. With all of the projects together and coding in place, you can use the Autofilter to filter out tasks by tower. Use the “Using Resource” filter to filter out tasks by resource. For example, below is a view of the tasks assigned to the resource Bob. It’s important to note that since the same project template was used, the summary tasks are needed to show which project is the source of the tasks: Here are a few other methods and reporting options you may find useful: From the Gantt chart apply the Using Resource filter to see just the assignments for a particular resource. When viewing the Task Usage view, use the Resource grouping. When viewing the Resource Usage view, create a customized group to group assignment by Tower No. by Resource Name. If you dont want to use a Master Project, consider combining the projects on a temporary basis. The projects will combine temporarily for reporting purposes. If the resources aren’t shared using a resource pool but reside in separate project files, resources won’t combine and over-allocations across projects won’t be available, but the assignments per resource will be visible. Consistency of the resource name will help with this problem. Open all files to be combined and then: Using Project 2010, click on View | New Window | select projects to be combined | choose OK. Using Project 2007 and earlier, click on Window | New Window | select projects to be combined | choose OK. If the customized field was created in the member projects, when combined, the methods described above will be available. If all tower projects are in one large project schedule, the steps above would apply.  

Ask the Experts: Over-allocation with 2.5 Hours of Work?

JP-PM asks: I was wondering why Microsoft Project creates a conflict right off the bat in this example: Task 1: 2 hrs work assigned to Jack and Jane Task 2: 0.5 hrs work assigned to Jack It creates both tasks starting at 8:00 AM today (10/31/11) and right away Jack is overallocated. My question is, why Is this a bug and do I have to manually move a task a few minutes after the first one ends? Ellen answers: This is a good question, JP-PM, and there are actually a few answers that are possible explanations. I can assure you, it’s not a bug. The Cause of the Problem When tasks are entered, they’re assigned the start time that’s the value contained in the start field of the Calendar options for the project. If assignments are made without relationships applied to the tasks and resources have the same start time on their calendars, the assignments will be scheduled to start at the same time. The resource is over allocated because the tasks actually are planned to start in the same hour of the day. Over allocations are actually calculated at the minute level, which is why this occurs. There’s an option called Automatic Scheduling available through the Resource Leveling options in all levels of Project. With this option turned on, every time a task is changed, all assignments are automatically resource leveled for the entire schedule. I don’t recommend the use of this option for the following reasons: All tasks and assignments will change each time you change a task. The overhead of the time to complete the leveling every time a task changes in some schedules might have a negative impact on performance. Keep in mind there are other calculations (such as critical path) already being performed each time tasks change. Project will decide what tasks are scheduled to be performed, resulting in adjustments from the project scheduler. Assignments for resources without over allocations might be impacted if multiple resources are assigned to tasks that contain over allocated resources. One factor in the level resource function is establishing resource availability using resource calendars. Using automatic leveling will force the project scheduler to keep resource calendars as up to date as possible. Since automatic scheduling is performed each time a task is changed, the calendars would require daily maintenance to keep them accurate. The Solution Assign resources to tasks to collect the demand for resources. Look at the Resource Usage view to view the resource demand and look for over allocations (values in red). If there are questionable values (such as a resource over allocated with only three hours assigned), you will be able to see which tasks are causing the problem. You can zoom in and see which hours of the day are double-booked. Once you have the demand for the resources, then you can decide if fixing the problem is necessary and which is the best method to use to make corrections. In this situation, creating a relationship with another task might be enough to resolve the problem. Keep in mind that if multiple resources are assigned to a task and the task is moved, you might be resolving the problem for one resource only to create a problem for another resource. A few other options might be re-assigning one of the tasks to another resource, outsourcing the work, eliminating the task, delaying one of the tasks, or manually leveling a specific resource or all resources. However, don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of micromanaging the schedule. The schedule should never be a day timer with resources assigned to a task at a specific time on a specific day. Most schedulers assign resources to an estimated number of hours for a week or a month and collect feedback at the end of a status period to help move the schedule forward. The more a schedule is micromanaged, the more the schedule becomes the project itself instead of a tool to help manage the project.  

Ask the Experts: Selling your Message with the Project 2010 Timeline View

Julie from New York City asks: I am in the process of putting a proposal together for a prospective client. The client will have eight batches of work to be completed. I need to lay out what it will take to do one batch of work that includes building in hidden contingency time. I would also like to show the timeline graphically. Each batch should take about five to six months to complete, and I need to highlight check points for the client. Any ideas? Ellen answers: Microsoft Project 2010 Professional and Standard have the Timeline view, which can help you present your timeline graphically to your client. You’ll want to stay at a high level, showing just the tasks that will drive the batch of work you plan to represent. I would also suggest entering some milestones to represent goal points for the timeline. Here are the requirements as you’ve stated them: Each batch of work is expected to take five to six months of duration. Each needs to include some slack for contingencies that may occur and that the client won’t see. The client will approve work during the project, and approval points should be shown on the timeline. To create the Timeline view to meet these requirements the tasks to be shown in the view must be identified. All of the tasks must be present in the task list. The tasks should be higher level rather than detail level, but detail tasks can be included in the Timeline view. The client approval points should be entered as milestones. Names on tasks should be clear to denote what work will occur. In other words, don’t use “company speak” — terms that only internal employees will understand. Use terms that are easily understandable to the client to make sure you convey a clear message. The next step would be to filter out only the tasks that should be shown in the Timeline View: This can be done several ways, but the easiest is to mark each task and apply the autofilter to the Gantt view. To mark tasks to be filtered for the Timeline view, insert the Marked column: Right click on the Task name column | Insert column | Marked The Marked column contains only a Yes or No value. Tasks that are to be included in the Timeline view should be marked “Yes.” Note how summary and milestones tasks are marked “yes.” See the example below. Figure 1 Once all tasks are marked, it’s easy to apply the autofilter to display on the “Yes” values in the Marked column. Click on the down arrow to the right of the Marked column name, remove the checkmark next to Select all, and choose “Yes.” Then click OK to apply the filter. Figure 2 With the filter applied you should be viewing just the tasks that will be contained in the Timeline report. Figure 3 Select all of the tasks, right click on the selection, and choose “Add to Timeline.” If the Timeline view doesnt automatically display, click on the View tab and choose the Timeline option to display that view. If you need to tweak the view, click in the Timeline view and then click on the Format tab on the ribbon bar to access the Timeline view formatting options: Adjust the time density using the time zoom at the bottom right corner of the view. If labels for milestones overlap, select and drag them to make viewing easier. Adjust the date labels using the Date Format options. Click on a Timeline bar and change font, color, bold, italic, underline, text styles, etc. to format the Timeline view. If a bar ends up in the view that should be removed, click on the bar and click on Remove From Timeline. Below is an example of the finished Timeline view. Note along the bottom the clients responsibilities are shown as milestone points. Figure 4 Clicking in the Timeline view and selecting Copy Timeline will give you several options to copy the view for email, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or as a full-sized image. Once copied, the image can be pasted. When creating a proposal or communicating a higher level timeline for others to review, the Timeline view is a wonderful tool to help you convey your message. Keep detail data to a minimum and add higher level tasks (summaries). Milestones will help point out important points in time. Having the tasks marked will make it easy to reproduce this view in the future.  

Ask the Experts: The Case of the Calendar Changes

Wayne from Santa Fe, NM asks: I created a project containing 400 tasks. After entering the tasks I realized that my calendar wasn’t correct and made some changes. I also changed the Calendar options. The changes affected the task durations as well as the assignments and didn’t result in what I was hoping for. What did I do wrong? Ellen answers: You have discovered a feature that all levels of Microsoft Project have that encourages the user to establish the project calendar and calendar options before entering tasks. Project provides access to calendars available for use in a project through the “Change Working Time” function. Think of Change Working Time as an access point to the group of calendars that will be available to be used in your project. You can use any calendar as the project, task, or resource calendars. When you adjust a calendar through Change Working Time, you’re not assigning any specific calendar as the project calendar. To assign a project calendar, for all versions of Microsoft Project click on: Project | Project Information Calendar option settings should be specified before entering tasks. If the settings are changed after tasks are entered, the duration values most likely will be affected. These settings are specified for each project. However, in Project 2010 you can set them to be consistent for all new projects. To view and change the Calendar options for all projects in Project 2010, click on: File | Options | Schedule If you’re using an earlier version of Project and you want to view and change calendar options, click on: Tools | Options | Calendar The Calendar settings that should be addressed for projects are default start and finish times as well as hours per day, hours per week, and days per month. The values for default start and finish times are needed to establish the start and finish times of tasks if times aren’t specified. In other words, if the tasks contain relationships, times will be calculated based on the relationships. Tasks might also have a constraint that will specify a time. If neither of those situations exists, this is the time that will be used to schedule a task. When a task is entered, the values in these option fields will be used to determine the number of hours of work that will occur per day, per week, or number of days per month. The values in the options shouldn’t be changed after tasks have been entered. To see the effect of making these changes, here are some examples. I’ve entered Task 1 into a project file: I’ve set calendar hours per day to eight: Here is the result of changing that setting from eight hours to seven: Note that the Duration changed to 1.14 days. The task picked up the value of one day equaling eight hours when it was entered, and it will hold that value. The setting only affects future tasks that are entered. The existing tasks keep the setting of eight hours as one day on Task 1. The 1.14 days that shows up is the duration that will be necessary to accommodate the eight hours the task requires when a day contains a possible seven hours of work. Below, in Figure 4, I’ve added Task 2 with the calendar option of hours per day set to seven. Note the difference in the task lengths. The next step is to assign a resource and then change the calendar to see the result. In the next example I’ve assigned a resource to both tasks using the default calendar times of eight to five. Note that Task 1 is for eight hours of work and Task 2 is for seven hours of work. Next I change the Project Calendar to reflect that the work day is four hours long. Here’s the result of the adjustment to the assignments. Note that the work day for each day doesn’t exceed four hours. The duration of the tasks are affected as well. So best practice says to enter Project Calendar and Calendar option settings before the tasks are entered. Note! When using the import function to a new project, the values might not be set correctly, particularly in Microsoft Project versions prior to 2010. Consider creating a file, entering the correct settings, and then importing tasks by appending them to the end of an existing project.  

The Art and Science of Estimating Task Lengths

Project management is both an art and a science. Estimating task durations and work draw on the project manager skills and experience. Estimates take into consideration factors such as resource skill, history, and experience. In this lesson, we’ll look at estimating duration and work. Estimating is the ability to make an educated guess as to the duration, work, or duration and work of a task. It’s an art to know how long a task will take and how many resources are required and what skills are required for a task. What estimates are part of project management? You can estimate duration (length of time), work (amount of work), or duration and work in minutes, hours, days, months, etc. How Project 2010 Calculates Work and Duration It would be helpful to understand the formula that will be driving the scheduling of the tasks before you enter your estimates: Work = Duration * Units (quantity of a resource) or Duration = Work / Units (quantity of a resource) Estimating Techniques There are two primary forms of estimation you can apply in your project work. Top down estimating is used when performing the same types of projects frequently. Itallows for estimating the length of a phase. The details for tasks will follow. Manual scheduling mode in Project 2010 allows for this type of estimating model. In bottom up estimating you estimate each task, work package, or deliverable of the project (this could be at the task level) to allow for the accumulated roll up of the values to create the length of the project. The roll up will accumulate at the summary task levels as totals for duration, work, and cost. In turn, the summary tasks will roll up to the project summary task for a grand total on the project. In either case you should rely on estimates that come from the project manager, team members, subject matter experts, stakeholders, historic data, and experience, of course. To get good estimates, we recommend four primary sources: Ask the Right People:Look for the most experienced person in a specific skill area. Chances are, at some time they’ve worked a project similar to the one you now face. These people can be invaluable to a project manager for estimating. Ask the Performing Resource:If you’re lucky enough to know who your resources will be for the project, the performing resource is always the best source for an estimate. However, how you ask the resource for the estimate will make a difference. If you ask for an estimate, most people are thinking about fitting the work into their current workload. Framing the question from the point of view that the project will be worked sometime in the future will result in a more accurate response. They should only consider how long (or how much work) it would take to perform the task regardless of the specific timeframe. Ask More than One Person: Seeking various points of view for estimates will help define what the best estimate is. Project 2010 has an add-in feature called PERT which allows for 3-point estimates for task durations. The 3 points are pessimistic, most likely, and optimistic. These values are fed into a formula that will result in an estimated duration of a task. The result will be three Gantt charts: Pessimistic, Optimistic, and Most likely. Ask Subject Matter Experts: People with expertise in the subject of the project are always a good source for advice. Best Practice! Padding, slack, and time reserve should be included in any schedule. Every organization and project management methodology has its own approach. The important point is that extra time should be built into all schedules to help manage the inevitable contingencies that will occur during the performance of all projects. If padding, slack, or time reserves aren’t included in the planning, the schedule won’t be realistic and you face a reduced probability of completing the project as planned. Entering Estimates The Entry table of the Gantt chart is designed for easy entry of task estimates. Adding the work column to the view will enable adding Work estimates. To Insert the Work Column: From the Views tab, in the Task Views section, click Gantt Chart (the default value will be the Entry table). Right click on the Start column. Select Insert Column and click Work. For each task, enter: A duration value A work value A duration and a work value Valid entry values: 1m = 1 minute 1h = 1 hour 1d = 1 day 1w = 1 week 1mo = 1 month 1 y = 1 year Duration entries will be scheduled as work days as defined by the project calendar. You can obtain physical days (the actual day count including non-working days) by using the Elapsed time. By placing an “E” in front of the letter in the duration field, the value will be scheduled in the physical number of days. For example: 13 ed = 13 physical days. In the example below, Task 1 is scheduled as business days (using the project calendar) and Task 2 is scheduled as physical days. Note the scheduling difference: Other Helpful Information When task durations are entered, a will be added within the duration field. This represents that the task information hasn’t been finalized and is considered estimated. This indicator is optional and may be turned off at File | Options | Schedule byunchecking the following options: Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations New scheduled tasks have estimated durations Some project mangers plan all tasks in fixed duration. It should be noted, that fixed duration tasks will be tied to calendar dates and might be more difficult to schedule and track in the future. Manual scheduling mode for a task has the benefit of not requiring values in duration, start, and finish columns. Text may be added as a note to the scheduler. If the task mode is changed to automatic scheduling, the text will be lost and, the software will enter a valid value. In the view below note the values in the duration, start, and finish columns for Task 2. Note! Inserting Effort-driven and Type columns will allow for setting these values for each task as well. Each task will be unique in the nature of the work to be performed. As a result these settings should be adjusted to determine what task type and effort-driven values are appropriate for a task. Task estimating is a skill built with time and practice. Your resources are the best source for information to help build your project schedule. Tapping their collective brainpower to develop realistic estimates will help you gain a reputation for bringing projects in on time. This article is excerpted from Managing Projects using Microsoft Project 2010 Desktop, courseware published by MVP-Press. Reprinted with permission from the publisher.