How to analyse an MS Project Plan

How to analyse an MS Project Plan

Read and analyse a Microsoft Project
schedule at a glance
MS Project is a professional project planning/scheduling tool for Project Managers. It is
the industry standard for software and IT projects and is very widely used to schedule
many types of project and programs. The latest version is MS Project 2010. Because
MS Project is a professional tool, MS Project Plans can be daunting to read and
understand.
Who is the guide for?
This is a guide for anyone who is involved in a project, but who isnt a project manager
or is new to project management. You will find this guide useful if you are:
A sponsor of the project or a member
of the project board
A senior member of the project team
A team member with tasks to deliver
A Client working with a 3rd party
Project Manager
A Supplier with products or tasks to
deliver
A stakeholder with an interest in the
project outcome
A person who is or will be impacted by the project

Why you need to understand MS Project plans

All of the people in the list above need to understand the project plan, but often dont
have a background in project management or arent familiar with MS Project. Not
engaging with the project plan can have devastating consequences for the project.

To use MS Project successfully Project Managers need a strong

foundation in Project Planning concepts and techniques. Project Managers
are are not infallible, they make mistakes, they get influenced to cut
corners and they can easily miss activities and dependencies.
If you are reading this guide then you are likely to be involved in a project and will be
impacted by it's success or failure, it is in your interest to analyse the plan, look out for
key warning signs and feedback to the Project Manager.

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How to analyse an MS Project Plan

The project plan at first glance

As part of the MS Office suite MS Project uses a similar navigation as Word, Excel etc.
Underneath the toolbars the plan itself will be split into two areas. On the left hand side
is a table view. Running from left to right you should see columns for tasks, duration,
start and finish dates and resources. There may be additional columns, but these are
the key areas. On the right hand side is the Gantt Chart view, named after Henry Gantt.
This view shows the project tasks as bars mapped to a calendar.

Task IDs and Indicator column

The grey column at the far left is the unique identifier for each task, similar to the row
numbers in Excel. Next to it is the Indicator field, which is used to show information
about a particular task. For example if a task has notes associated with it or contains a
hyperlink.

Warning sign Look out for this symbol . It indicates that there is a constraint
that fixes a task's start or finish to a particular date. Too many constraints could
indicate a scheduling problem for more information see this guide to the use of
constraints and common mistakes (msproject-constraints-part2.html).

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How to analyse an MS Project Plan

Tasks and task durations

The Task Name column contains the description of each task. Tasks names should be
detailed enough so that you can clearly understand what each task will deliver. Note that
the tasks will be organised logically into Summary and sub tasks. Summary tasks are
used to order groups of task. In the image below the Functional, Technical and
Design/artwork specifications form a logical grouping entitled Specifications and
designs.

If you look across to the Gantt view you will notice that the summary tasks appear as
black lines illustrating the start and finish of the sub-tasks. Next to Task Name you will
see the Duration column. Durations can be entered in months, weeks, days, hours and
even minutes. The summary tasks will show the total duration for the tasks beneath.
Warning sign Look out for 1 day? this is the default duration so you will want
to check if it is correct.

Start and finish dates

The Start and Finish date columns follow the Duration column. These are automatically
calculated by MS Project using the task duration, working times, resource allocation and
task dependencies. The Project Manager should avoid entering start and finish dates
manually as they will interfere with the calculation of the project end date. I mentioned
constraints earlier - constraints fix a tasks start or finish to a particular date. When a
start or finish date is set by the Project Manager a constraint will be set. You can check
for constraints by looking for this symbol in the indicator column
.

Dependencies
In the task table there should also be a column for Predecessors and one for
Resources. Predecessors, aka task links or dependencies, are very important in project
planning. To calculate the end date of your project and to understand the Critical Path
(Critical-Path-analysis.html) each task should have a:
Predecessor, a task that links to it, and a
Successor, a task that it links to.

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How to analyse an MS Project Plan

Ideally the first task on the plan will be the the only task without a predecessor and the
last task the only task without a successor.

Resources
Finally the Resources column records the people, teams or machinery that will complete
the task. Multiple resources can be assigned to a task. Some resources may work parttime and Project handles this by allowing the Project Manager to adjust the Units
percentage of a resources time assigned to a task. Check that the resource column
contains identifiable owners for the work.
Warning sign Generic terms like Supplier or Developer should be clarified
and ideally replaced with a named resource.

Gantt /bar chart view

The Gantt Chart view is named after Henry Gantt (/plan-project/gantt-charts.html) who,
in the 1910s, developed a method of planning projects that showed tasks as rows with
corresponding bars showing the duration of each task against a calendar. Tasks are
represented by rectangular bars that correspond to the task duration. The Project
Manager may have formatted the Gantt chart to show additional information, for
example resource names and task names.

It is the Gantt chart view combined with the task table that makes MS Project so
powerful. The Gantt view makes it very easy to understand the project timeline and the
dependencies, which are shown by an arrow linking tasks.

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How to analyse an MS Project Plan

Working time
The project plan should take into account working days and hours. By default MS
Project assumes that working time is Monday to Friday 08:00 to 17:00 with 1 hour for
lunch. Resources can have specific calendars so it is worth checking that your
resources arent scheduled to work during non-working time. If you have MS Project you
can check this via View > Resource Usage or View > Resource Sheet (double click the
resource). Finally check the Project Plan takes into account Christmas and other
holidays. This sounds obvious, but MS Project doesnt contain holidays by default so it
is well worth checking the plan doesnt assume 100% working time over Christmas.
Warning sign Are tasks scheduled over Christmas or public holidays?

Critical path
The Critical Path is the series of tasks that must finish on time for the entire project to
finish on schedule. Each task on the critical path is a critical task. You can also think of it
as:
the longest path from start to finish
or the path without any slack,
or the path corresponding to the shortest time in which the project can be
completed.
It should be easy to identify the Critical Path from the Gantt Chart view. Tasks on the
path may be highlighted as in the example below (tasks on the Critical Path are Red).

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How to analyse an MS Project Plan

The Critical Path drives the project end date. The project plan and predicted end date
may be inaccurate if the Critical Path is not correct. Task durations, links, constraints,
resources and working time all impact the critical path. Check you are happy with each
of these areas and if you cant easily identify the Critical Path raise this with the Project
Manager.
Warning sign If the project manager can't show the critical path this could
indicate an unrealistic plan or a mistake in scheduling.

Summary - analysing MS Project Plans

I hope you have found this guide to MS Project plans useful. This is a high-level view we
havent looked in any depth at resourcing, working and non-working time, managing
costs, % effort, reporting or many other areas of MS Project functionality. However, this
does arm you with the information you need to understand the key parts of a MS Project
plan and to identify areas that need deeper investigation. I havent explicitly stated, but if
you receive a plan that doesnt show the areas mentioned here this should be a flag for
further discussion.
Warning sign! To do lists or excel spreadsheets with start and finish dates are
not project plans! A realistic well planned project will have a Project Schedules
built in a professional project planning tool like Microsoft Project

Read more on MS Project

Counting tasks with MS Project (/ms-project/counting-totals-ms-project.html) - you often
need to count tasks of various types on project, for example, the number of overdue
tasks, or critical tasks. Ellen Lehnert
(https://plus.google.com/107362179217180158931?rel=author) explains how you can
count tasks of different types within MS Project.
Timeline Maker (/plan-project/timeline-maker-powerpoint.html) - make a beautiful project
timeline in PowerPoint to summarise your detailed plan. This timeline maker is easy to
use and gives professional results.

STAKEHOLDERMAP.COM

Microsoft Project Templates - download

project plan templates
Microsoft Project Example project plans, based on real world
successful projects. Project plans for a software project, a
conference a website an e-learning DVDi and a meeting or

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