SE423 – SOFTWARE PROJECT

MANAGEMENT
IS361 – IS PROJECT
MANAGEMENT

Lab Manual

DR. LAHOUARI GHOUTI

SEPTEMBER 01, 2020
1. Overview of Microsoft Project 2
2. Activity 1 14
3. Activity 2 28
4. Activity 3 32
5. Activity 4 35
6. Activity 5 49
7. Activity 6 56

1. Overview of Microsoft Project

In this session, we introduce Microsoft (MS) Project tool and launch our practical session. This session
includes a simple wedding project.

To do so, we will add tasks and dates to the timeline, which includes entering the task name, duration,
start date, and finish date.

Then, we will look at these tasks in MS Project tool to learn how they work. Finally, we will discuss
subtasks.

Wedding List:

1. Planning
2. Attire (Clothing used by guest and attendees)
3. Guests
4. Venue
5. Catering
6. Flowers
7. Memories
8. Details
9. Wedding Day
10. Honeymoon

Task 1: Start a new blank project

Task manual scheduling
Task auto-scheduling

You can setup the project start date using the Project information as follows:

You can always change the start and end dates of your project as follows:
We usually plan projects from the start date but sometimes we might need to schedule the project from
the end date in case we know that we must finish the project on a specific deadline date
Now, let us add all the tasks with no preference for the start and end dates:

Let set all the tasks to auto-scheduling:

Before moving any further, let us save the new project:

You might
have other
For this time, let us save it as MS Project file with extension (mpp). Other options are possible too.
When working with many projects, you can pin the folder where you are saving your daily work on
projects by selecting the pin button
Now, we can safely close the project
Let us assume that we have another project (say Dummy_Project.mpp) that we want to wok on in
addition to our project (Wedding_Planning_Project.mpp).

We can switch between the two projects using the View  Switch View
 2. Activity 1
Create a project for bathroom refit using the following tasks:

1. Planning
2. Finance
3. Contractors
4. Preparation
5. Electrical
6. Plumbing
7. Tiling
8. Flooring
9. Painting
10. Equipment
11. Finish

Set the start date for each task to today date. Each task is scheduled for a single day. Save the project as:
Bathroom_Refit_Project.mpp.

Let us continue with our work. Now, we will resume working on the wedding planning project. Let us
open the file in MS Project.
As you can see all the tasks have estimated durations of one day (see the ? symbol). Now, we can set the
durations more reasonably by changing the duration fields.

If for some reasons, we want to change the project start date, we can always review the project options
as follows:
 8 business days

Current date

Important Note: The duration (in days) includes working (business) days and week-end days are not
considered as in the case of the Planning task (8 days planned from 1 st September 2020 to 10th
September 2020).

Now, we can explore a specific task details as follows:

 Not set
manually!

Each task in the project will may have predecessor tasks (one or many). We can set/view the task
predecessors by clicking the Predecessors tab.
Under Task menu, we can access the same window using the Information tab.
We will look at other options in upcoming sessions.

More depths on Project Tasks.

As you may have noticed, the tasks in the wedding planning project are high level and are missing many
detailed subtasks. In what follows, we will add more details to the project tasks. For illustration
purposes, we will add subtasks to the Guest task. We will first insert a new task beneath it as follows:
The first subtask will be renamed: Make Guest List.
 Click on this indent button to make
it a subtask of Guest task

In bold to indicate a summary task

Expand/Collapse wedge
Let us create another subtask under Guests task by inserting a new task above the Venue task.

Note that new subtask gets the same indentation as

the subtask above it.
 Change the subtask into a full task

Other subtasks will be added in the same way.

Arrange the column size
 Task indentation buttons

Assume now that the first subtask (Make Guest List) will require 8 days. Then, we can set it up in the
task information as follows:

Subtask with 8 days duration

Summary task representation in MS
Summary task does not have a duration: Project Gantt Chart
It is the sum of the subtasks’ durations
We can setup other subtasks’ durations for illustration purposes:

End date of summary task and

last subtask

3. Activity 2
Let us add the subtasks to all available summary tasks using the details below:

1. Planning
1.1 Agree budget and approach
1.2 Set wedding date
2. Wedding Clothes
2.1 Select and order wedding dress
2.2 Select and order bridesmaid dresses
2.3 Select and order groom tuxedo
3. Guests
3.1 Make Guest list
3.2 Send invitations
3.3 Finalize guest list
3.4 Book guest accommodation
4. Venue
4.1 Make reception venue short list
4.2 Book reception venue
4.3 Plan and finalize seating arrangements
5. Catering
5.1 Make caterer short list
5.2 Book caterer and finalize menu
 5.3 Make baker short list
5.4 Select baker and order cake
6. Flowers
6.1 Make florist short list
6.2 Select florist and order flowers
7. Memories
7.1 Make photographer short list
7.2 Select and book photographer
8. Details
8.1 Select and buy rings
8.2 Select and book entertainment
8.3 Select and book transport
8.4 Register wedding and get license
9. Wedding Day
9.1 Make wedding venue short list
9.2 Book wedding venue
9.3 Rehearsal
9.4 Wedding day
10. Honeymoon
10.1 Make honeymoon destination short list
10.2 Select honeymoon destination and book honeymoon

Note: We can change the basis of our project base time using the following option:
Set start of week and year

Set start and end hours of day

Set hours per day and week and

working days per month

Set durations of each task (day,

hour or more)
As you noticed, we can set the changes and work on our project using the time durations we like.

Solution to Exercise no. 2:

Here is the Gant chart of the project after adding all subtasks to our summary tasks:

4. Activity 3
Let us add more details to one of the subtasks of Wedding Clothing summary task as follows (say Select
and order wedding dress) using the following sub-subtasks:

1. Select wedding dress

2. Order dress
3. Measurements and fittings
a. Measurements
b. First fittings
c. Second fittings
Note: As you can see the level of task depth can be overwhelming in large-scale projects. MS Project
gives us an option to set the outline level for our project tasks as follows:

For example, setting the view outline to level 2, our project would look like:
 Setting all project outline to level 1 would result in:

MS Project has also level 0 outline that can be obtained using:

Select this
option
Project duration

Summary task:
File name
 Select this
option

The project summary task information window shows:

No predecessor!

To view only the project summary task, go to View  Outline and select: Hide subtasks.
 5. Activity 4
Let us add more details to Bathroom Refit project using the following sub-subtasks:

Task breakdown for bathroom refit

1. Planning:
1.1. Scoping
1.2. Select style
1.3. Decide about project manager
1.4. Check permissions required
1.5. Fix dates
1.6. Temporary accommodation
2. Finance
2.1. Estimate finance needed
2.2. Arrange finance
3. Contractors
3.1. Get contractor recommendations
3.2. Make contractor short list
3.3. Get contractor quotations
3.4. Appoint contractors
4. Preparation
4.1. Order skip for waste
4.2. Gut existing bathroom
4.3. Prepare for flooring
4.4. Prepare for tiling
4.5. Prepare for painting
5. Electrical
5.1. First fix electrics
5.2. Second fix electrics
5.3. Certification
6. Plumbing
6.1. First fix plumbing
6.2. Second fix plumbing
7. Tiling
7.1. Review available tiles
7.2. Select and order tiles
7.3. Tile delivery
7.4. Fit tiles
8. Flooring
8.1. Review available flooring
8.2. Select and order flooring
8.3. Flooring delivery
8.4. Fit flooring
9. Painting
9.1. Review paint options
9.2. Select and order paint
9.3. Paint delivery
9.4. Paint
10. Equipment
10.1. Visit bathroom showrooms
10.2. Select and order equipment
10.3. Equipment delivery
10.4. Fit equipment
11. Finish
11.1. Resolve snags
11.2. Clean up
11.3. Refit complete

Solution to Activity 4:
Task Dependency

In a project, a task may depend on one or more tasks. For instance, the subtask Order dress depends on
the Select wedding dress subtask.

We can therefore set a dependency between the two subtasks, by holding the control key and selecting

both subtasks. Then, using the Task menu, select menu item:

Now, subtask Order dress (Task no. 9) has the subtask Select wedding dress (Task 8) as its predecessor.
Predecessor
column

Task
dependency
To unlink the tasks, select both tasks and menu item:

To select a wedding dress, it may take quite some time (say 40 days). So let us change the duration of
the related subtask.

We have not only changed the duration of a specific subtask but we can also create more realistic task
dependencies as needed. For instance, selecting the bride maids dresses cannot be done before the
selection of the wedding dress which is reflected in the Gant chart above.

Now, by clicking on the dependency arrow, we get the following dialog window:
This window indicates that the dependency between the two subtasks is a finish-to-start relation. This
means that the second task cannot start before the end of the predecessor task. We can always alter
this type of dependency and even add lags or delays. For instance, let add a lag of 5 days. This results in:

5 days lag

In the same way, we can set the lag to be negative (say -5 days) to indicate a lead as follows:
 5 days lead

More details on predecessor:

FS: Finish-to-Start dependency

We can always change the default (finish-to-start) dependency between a task and its predecessor as
follows:
Finish-to-Start: The second task (successor task) will start when the first task (predecessor task) finishes
(default settings in MS Project).

Start-to-Start: The second task (successor task) may start when the first task (predecessor task) starts.

Finish-to-Finish: The second task (successor task) can only finish when the first task (predecessor task)
finishes.

Start-to-Finish: The second task (successor task) can only finish when the first task (predecessor task)
starts.

Now, let us move to the Guests task which has the following subtasks: 1) Make guest list; 2) Send
invitations; 3) Finalize guest list; and 4) Book guest accommodations. We may start sending invitations
once we have selected few guests. So, the dependency between the two subtasks is Start-to-Start with a
lag of 5 days:
 SS: Start-to-Start dependency

In the same way, finalizing the guest list cannot be done without receiving all replies from the guests.
 FF: Finish-to-Finish dependency

Now, we can turn our attention to the Catering task.

We can start creating the lists of caterers and bakers at the same time. But, we need to do afterwards,
the selection and menu/cake finalization as follows:

More organized tasks can be set by inserting blank rows between tasks pertaining to different phases:
We can do some arrangements of the wedding planning tasks to get finally:

2 predecessors must
both finish for the task to
start

1 predecessor must
finish for the task to
start (with 5 days lead
possible)

2 predecessors with
different constraints.
Task 17 may start when
Task 16 starts with 5
days lag
The constraints between the predecessors (Tasks 16 and 4) of Task 17: Task 17 can start when Task 16
starts with 5 days lag and after Task 4 finishes with no lag.

6 days lag
If we have added a lag to Task 4 constraint, we will get the following case:

Setting milestones: A milestone is not a task where some work is carried out but rather the end of a
main task or a phase. For instance, once we agree on the wedding date, we may say that we have
achieved a milestone (represented by a task of 0 duration). Let us call this milestone: wedding date set.

Milestone with Milestone depends Milestone

0 duration
symbol
Other project milestones are shown below:
Sometimes, we may want to set a task with non-zero duration as a milestone (for instance: Wedding
day task):

In this case, we can select the task. Then, select the Advanced tab and check the milestones button:
Note: When the view gets quite cumbersome, we can gain some space by unchecking the Timeline in
the View menu:

Free this space

We can also keep in our view only the project milestones:

 Project key
We can restore our normal view by unselecting the filter as follows: points
 6. Activity 5
Let us revisit the bathroom refit project and cast the main tasks into separate and independent phases.
A more detailed view is shown below:
The detailed breakdown is given below:

1. Planning
1.1 Scoping
1.2 Select style
1.3 Decide about project manager
1.4 Check permissions required
1.5 Fix dates
1.6 Temporary accommodation
2. Finance
2.1 Estimate finance needed
2.2 Arrange finance
3. Contractors
3.1 Get contractor recommendations
3.2 Make contractor short list
3.3 Get contractor quotations
3.4 Appoint contractors
4. Preparation
4.1 Order skip for waste
4.2 Gut existing bathroom
4.3 Prepare for flooring
4.4 Prepare for tiling
4.5 Prepare for painting
5. Electrical
 5.1 First fix electrics
5.2 Second fix electrics
5.3 Certification
6. Plumbing
6.1 First fix plumbing
6.2 Second fix plumbing
7. Tiling
7.1 Review available tiles
7.2 Select and order tiles
7.3 Tile delivery
7.4 Fit tiles
8. Flooring
8.1 Review available flooring
8.2 Select and order flooring
8.3 Flooring delivery
8.4 Fit flooring
9. Painting
9.1 Review paint options
9.2 Select and order paint
9.3 Paint delivery
9.4 Paint
10. Equipment
10.1 Visit bathroom showrooms
10.2 Select and order equipment
10.3 Equipment delivery
10.4 Fit equipment
11. Finish
11.1 Resolve snags
11.2 Clean up
11.3 Refit complete

Make sure to use the following durations for the various phases and tasks:
More details are given below:

Phase Name Duration Predecessor Tasks* Successor Tasks*

Planning Phase 12 days 21
Planning 4 days 13
Scoping 2 days 5,6,7,8,9
Select style 2 days 4
Decide about project manager 2 days 4
Check permissions required 2 days 4
Fix dates 2 days 4
Arrange temporary accommodation 2 days 4
Contractors 10 days
Get contractor recommendations 2 days 12
Make contractor short list 2 days 11 13
Get contractor quotations 5 days 12,3 14,17
Appoint contractors 1 day 13 15
Contractors appointed 0 days 14
Finance 3 days
Estimate finance needed 1 day 13 18
Arrange finance 2 days 17 19
Finance arranged 0 days 18
Purchasing Phase 7 days 2 40
Tiling 5 days
Review available tiles 3 days 24
Select and order tiles 2 days 23 25
Tiling delivery 0 days 24 38
Flooring 5 days
Review available flooring 3 days 28
Select and order flooring 2 days 27 29
Flooring delivery 0 days 28 38
Painting 4 days
Review paint options 2 days 32
Select and order paint 2 days 31 33
Paint delivery 0 days 32 38
Equipment 7 days
Visit bathroom showrooms 2 days 36
Select and order equipment 4 days 35 37
Equipment delivery 1 day 36 38
All materials on site 0 days 25,29,33,37
Implementation Phase 13 days 21 64
Preparation 5 days
Setup skip for waste 1 day 43
Gut existing bathroom 2 days 42 45,44,46,48,52
Prepare for tiling 2 days 43 55
Prepare for flooring 2 days 43 57
 Prepare for painting 2 days 43 59
Electrical 7 days
First fix electrics 2 days 43 49
Second fix electrics 2 days 59,48 50,61SS+1 day
Certification 1 day 49
Plumbing 6 days
First fix plumbing 2 days 43 53
Second fix plumbing 2 days 52,59 61FS+1 day
Tiling 2 days
Fit tiles 2 days 44 61
Flooring 2 days
Fit flooring 2 days 45 61
Painting 2 days
Paint 2 days 46 61,49,53
Equipment 3 days
Fit equipment 3 days 59,49SS+1 62
day,53SS+1
day,55,57
Equipment fitted 0 days 61
Completion Phase 3 days 40
Resolve snags 2 days 66
Clean up 1 day 65 67
Refit complete 0 days 66
*: Check the figures below to get the task number:

Task
number
Task
number

Task
number
Task
number

7. Activity 6
Adding Resources to Projects in Microsoft Project

So far, we have created all the required tasks to complete the project keeping in mind all kinds of
constraints and dependencies. However, to complete any of the planned tasks, various types of
resources are required. Resources include the people involved in the project, equipment, material used
and costs associated with the project.

Tasks and resources are the main two building blocks in Microsoft Project. In what follows, we will link
these two blocks using a procedure called resource assignment. Microsoft Project has two main views
available: Tasks and Resources.

Task Views Resource Views