PMI Baltimore Chapter’s

Virtual Meeting, April 7, 2010

Tips & Tricks for PMs & Advanced Users

of MS Project
presented by David Hunsberger

Sponsored by Unisys Federal Systems

 Agenda

• 3:30 pm Call to Order/Housekeeping, Announcements &

Introductions
• 3:45 pm Tips & Tricks for PMs & Advanced Users of
MS Project, presented by David Hunsberger
• 4:30 pm Q&A
• 4:45 pm Information on PDUs and Recorded Session
• 4:55 pm Close of Meeting

2
Housekeeping
• To prevent “noise”/feedback, either use microphone on
your laptop or phone speaker (conference bridge), don’t
use both
• Do NOT put this call on HOLD
• MUTE your phone/laptop unless asking a question
– Use LiveMeeting Q&A, we will monitor throughout meeting
and answer questions periodically
• Pre-registration for this meeting is highly encouraged
– For those PMPs who did not pre-register you will need to do
the following:
• For those attending on LiveMeeting – send an email to
Thomas.Clyborne@Unisys.com with name, email address and
phone number
• For those attending in person – sign in on the attendance sheet
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Announcements
• April 9 PMI Baltimore Membership Survey ends
─ www.surveymonkey.com/s/CMDKFP2
• May 12 Next Unisys Internal Meeting – Deltek & EVM
PMCE/CMEx Mentoring Program Graduation (after CMEx Mtg)

• May 13 Comments due for PMI Practice Standard for Estimating Exposure Draft
─ http://www.pmi.org/Resources/Pages/Exposure-Drafts.aspx
• May 17 One-Day Seminar, Coaching & Inspirational Leadership, presented by
Lambert Consulting, Loyola Columbia Campus – Send email by April 22 to
Loretta.Letke@unisys.com for chance to win FREE attendance (1 seat)

• June 2 Next PMI Baltimore Virtual Meeting, 3:30 pm EDT, Carl Pritchard’s
presentation on Risk Management

• June 3 PMI WDC Golf Tournament, 1:30 pm Start, Westfields, Clifton, VA.
Unisys is sponsoring this event and has a foursome. If you are interested
in joining the foursome (FREE), send email to Marc.Shapiro@unisys.com
(Unisys Federal employees only) by April 30 (must include handicap).

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 Part 1 - Navigating in Large Schedules

David Hunsberger
MCP – Microsoft Project (1995)

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 5

 The Problem…

• People Tend to Fear Large Schedules

• This Causes Them to Force Large Projects into Smaller
Schedules
• Not Having Enough Detail Reduces Schedule Quality and
“Power” (The “Fat Briefcase” Anecdote)

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 6

 The Solution…

• Overcome Our Fear of Large Schedules

• Navigating Our Way Around Large Schedules is Key to This

• Custom Filters are Great Navigation Aids

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 7

 Background Factors…

• The “Sweet Spot” for Task Durations is Between 1 and 5 Days,

Some Would Say
• Shorter and Longer Tasks May Also be Necessary (Key
Meetings; “LOE” Tasks)

• Don’t Forget Milestones (Zero Duration)

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 8

Lets Look First at Filters

Some Standard Project Filters Help Here – such as the Date

Range and Task Range (ID) Filters

But The Best Navigation Filters Need to Be Custom Made

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 9

• Let’s Build a “Name Contains” Filter to find any word we
choose

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 10

Custom Filters – Go To
“Project” – “Filtered For” – “More Filters”

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 11

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 12
4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 13
This pops up a little dialogue box…

Suppose we ask for the word “Requirement” …

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 14

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 15
Another Navigation Aide:
– Use the Show Button to Display High-Level Summary Tasks,
and Drill Down from There

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 16

 Here are the results for “Outline Level 2:

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 17

 • Hands-on Demo

• End of Part 1

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 18

 Part 2 - Creating Networks (without 3rd Party
Add-Ins)
–
Some Tips for Using the “Native” Network
Functionality within Microsoft Project

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 19

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 20
4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 21
4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 22
 Two Key Menu
Items to Work
With

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 23

 Set On

Set Off
The Defaults
are Shown
Set On
~~~

Change Five Set On

Settings
Set On

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 24

 This is where
you choose
which fields go
in the network
boxes

The default
shapes need
some tweaking
to save space

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 25

 Edit this to pick
which fields go
in the template

Notice the
strange field
names – these
are custom
composites

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 26

 But wait – I
need to go
Finally – This even
is where the deeper…
fields are set

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 27

 One more
layer deep to
set the general
characteristics
of the boxes

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 28

 How do I customize the contents of a field?
ID + UID

Codes for:
• “Start No Earlier”
Constraint,
•No Pred,
•No Succ

Lead + Responsible
Organization

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 29

 How do I customize the contents of a field?

One more
layer deep to
set the general
characteristics
of the boxes

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 30

 • Hands-on Demo

• End of Part 2

4/7/10 David Hunsberger – www.it7.com 31

Q&A

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PDU Info for Today’s PMI BC Virtual Meeting

• PDU Category = Category 3

• Category Type = Report a Component 1-2 PDU Event
• PDU Number: C078-100407
– Component ID – C078 (In Step 2, enter ONLY C078 and click on it – it’s a
link)
– Activity Meeting Number = 100407
• Activity Name = April 2010 PMI Baltimore Chapter Virtual Meeting
• Number of PDUs = 1 PDU
• POC: Loretta Letke, PMP, PMI Baltimore Chapter VP, Membership
• Phone Number: 443-756-9295
• Email: loretta.letke@pmibaltimore.org

• TIP: Take a screen shot of this information

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