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What Is New in Microsoft Project 2010?: PM World Today - Viewpoint - April 2010

WHAT IS NEW IN MICROSOFT PROJECT 2010? Published in PM World Today – April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV) By Ana Maria Rodriguez, MSE, PMP International Correspondent for PMForum & PM World Today and Santiago Sereno Scheduler at ERA Project Management Rosario, Argentina

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81 views7 pages

What Is New in Microsoft Project 2010?: PM World Today - Viewpoint - April 2010

WHAT IS NEW IN MICROSOFT PROJECT 2010? Published in PM World Today – April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV) By Ana Maria Rodriguez, MSE, PMP International Correspondent for PMForum & PM World Today and Santiago Sereno Scheduler at ERA Project Management Rosario, Argentina

Uploaded by

Arun Kumar K
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

PM WORLD TODAY VIEWPOINT APRIL 2010

WHAT IS NEW IN MICROSOFT PROJECT 2010?


By Ana Maria Rodriguez, MSE, PMP
International Correspondent for PMForum & PM World Today
and
Santiago Sereno
Scheduler at ERA Project Management
Rosario, Argentina
Microsoft has announced the latest release of its project scheduling software, MS
Project. The software is expected to be on the market with all the Office 2010
package on the month of May. The Beta version is available at the Microsoft Website
and is free access until November 20101 in Spanish, English, French, German,
Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. Office 2010 is not required for installing the
software, in fact the beta version works pretty well even with Office 2003.
According to Mr. Cris Capossela, Business Senior VP at Microsoft, this is the best
release of Project in 10 years. Mr. Capossela bases his opinin on the new functions
for easier usage, the integration with portfolio management and with software such
as Sharepoint2.
Although we cannot deny that MS Project is not an easy tool for managing large
projects, it is our daily usage tool for planning and scheduling as it is for thousands of
users in the world. So we received with great expectation the announcement of a
new released. We expected to find improvements to some problems that are
maintained in MS Project and also new tools. In the following lines we share what we
found as a novelty in Project Professional 2010:
Changes in the menu
The first change to notice is the new menu similar to those in all MS Office 2007, this
is ribbon menu. Although this menu has grouped functions as a means to ease users
work, it really takes time to get familiar with the new placement of commands. Those
planning on switch from Project 2007 to Project 2010 should take some low-speed
time to find all functions in their new place. Many commands are not visible per
default and should be added from the options menu.

Microsoft Project Website http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx

MPUG Website
http://www.mpug.com/News/Pages/TheProject2010InterviewwithChrisCapossela.aspx

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

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Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

Once frustration of not finding what you need is overcome, it is clear that the menu is
much friendlier. We specially highlight the new format menu which is much more
dynamic that those in the previous releases and really helps when giving format to
the Gantt Chart. It is especially useful for showing the different baselines of the
project and also to represent slacks.

Planning at Summary Tasks level


While planning on a rolling-wave mode, it is common to find the need to assign
duration to the summary task until the detailed tasks planning is approved. Previous
releases of MS Project always scheduled the summary task in an automatic mode,
making impossible to make this progressive analysis of durations. MS Project 2010
allows choosing between manually scheduled or auto scheduled for summary tasks.
If a summary task is manually scheduled, its duration may be different from the value
resulting from the duration of its detailed tasks. For using this option the task mode
column should be inserted.
The task Inspector allows understanding the causes for a task date and all factors
affecting each task.

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

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Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

Inactivate Tasks
It is common that while the project moves forward, the execution of some tasks is not
certain. In the previous Project releases it was required to delete these tasks to avoid
affecting the calculations of durations and critical path. MS Project 2010 offers a new
tool that allows to inactivate tasks, this means that the tasks can be kept in the
project with their predecessors and succesors and all properties but do not affect in
any way the scheduling of the project. If the task is again included in the project it
may be activated and becomes again part of the schedule. For inactivating a task the
user should go Task Information and select Inactivate

Resource Planning
MS Project 2010 offers a new view called Team planner in which all resources
assignments are shown on a baseline. This view is very useful for communication
assignments to the team or for resource levelling analysis.

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

Page 3

Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

Easily copying the WBS list from a MS Word document


It is very common that the Work Breakdown structure with the tasks of the project is
defined first in less specific software such as Word and then the WBS list is used for
Project. Previous versions allowed copy and paste of the tasks list but Project did not
maintain the WBS levels defined in word with tabulations. MS Project allows
preparing a WBS in word and then copying it to Project and the WBS levels structure
is maintained.
Timeline for showing the desired information
MS Project 2010 offers a new tool called the Timeline in which the tasks that need to
be communicated may be shown. It is not required to maintain the WBS structure for
showing the tasks, any task of milestone can be added to the timeline. This function
results very useful for efficient project communication by allowing to easily creating a
personalized summary of the project for each specific stakeholder. The timeline can
be copied to an email, a PowerPoint presentation or to a word document.
This new function is what we find more interesting on MS Project 2010.

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

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Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

What is missing in MS Project 2010?


As frequent users and also trainers in MS Project we always expect improvements in
areas that in our criteria make difficult the use of Project for both new users and
experts that forget details for a moment.
We would like to find that the options from the calendar menu to be calculated
automatically based on the data of the standard calendar. It is surprising that after
setting the project calendar with some amount of working hours the software does
not read this data and maintains independent values on the field hours per day. A
different amount of hours per day might be included for each new schedule which
will ease the usage of more schedules in the same project.
Our conclusions on MS Project 2010
The software presents valuable improvements; we specially highlight the format
menu that easily gives format to the Gant Chart, the inactivation of tasks, and the
timeline report. The functioning logic does not change (it does not improves or get
worst) and a great amount of patient is required to learn the new placement of all
commands in the ribbon menu. But there is no doubt Microsoft has made a great
effort to improve the software that already presented important improvement in the
2007 release. So more than everything we celebrate the importance that Microsoft
gives to the continuous development of this tool that result essential for the Project
Management Profession.

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

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Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

About the Authors:

Ana Maria Rodriguez


Author
International Correspondent
Rosario, Argentina

Ms. Ana Maria Rodriguez is founder and


manager of ERA Project Management, offering consulting services to the
Engineering and Construction Industry in Rosario, Argentina, and is an
adjunct professor of project management at the Universidad Nacional de
Rosario. Colombian by birth, Ms. Rodriguez graduated with a Civil
Engineering Degree from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota and
from the University of Texas at Austin, USA with a Masters Degree in
Construction Engineering and Project Management (MSE). Ms
Rodriguez has implemented Project Management best practices and
managed projects both in the government sector and in the engineering
and construction private sector. Ms. Rodriguez is part of the Board of
Directors of PMI Buenos Aires Argentina Chapter (PMIBA) and leads the
development of PMI in Rosario. Additional information about Ms. Rodriguez
can be found at www.pmforum.org/pm forum team. Ms. Rodriguez
welcomes contact at [email protected] also at www.erapm.com.ar

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

Page 6

Published in PM World Today April 2010 (Vol XII, Issue IV)

About the Authors (continued):

Santiago Sereno
Scheduler, ERA Project Management

Rosario, Argentina

Santiago Sereno is an Electronic Engineer from the Universidad Nacional


de Rosario. Scheduler at ERA Project Management. Mr. Sereno has bee in
charge of planning and control in important projects for the petrochemical,
steel, paper and automobile industies always using MS Project. He has
been also part of the scheduling of important building construction
projects. Santiago has offered in-company training on the software at
important companies. Mr. Sereno welcomes contact at
[email protected]

PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal - Subscriptions available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net

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