A proactive project portfolio management (PPM) system includes proper governance to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the data. An essential element of this governance is addressing projects that are completed or cancelled and to perform several actions on them also in order to complete them. You’ll want to ensure that all work has been…

Sharpen the Saw No doubt you know the story of the man in the forest who is too busy sawing to stop and sharpen the saw. Every day we come across project managers who are too busy updating their schedules and running their projects to stop and learn new techniques and disciplines that would greatly…

Have you ever had a situation where a tested, tried and true formula was producing an “incorrect” result? Recently one of my client schedulers wanted to know, “How can a formula produce correct results for 500 other tasks, but produce an obviously incorrect result for only one task?” In her schedule she was using this…

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…

Barbara from Denver, CO asks: I want to used earned value calculations to help manage my projects. However, when I look at the BCWS and BCWP fields, the data doesn’t seem to be calculated. What’s going on? Answer: Earned value can be a very helpful indicator of the health of your project. It’s the equalizer…