| A friend of mine, Allen, was the lead engineer in a highly creative team of computer chip designers. Allen reveled in the give-and-take of team brainstorming sessions and immersed himself in the design and development process of each new product. But despite loving his job, he’d often grumble, “I wish someone else could handle the management part and free me up for the engineering.”
One day Allen got his wish—or very nearly. He stopped by my office to pick me up for lunch and saw me working with some extraordinary tables, charts, and graphs on my computer. “What’s that?” he asked. I gave him a brief demonstration.
I showed Allen how to use the program to easily create a project schedule, assign people to tasks, track progress, communicate task information among team members, and even how to access project data on the World Wide Web. When the demonstration ended, Allen exclaimed, “This is it—I’ve finally found someone to manage my projects for me!”
The “someone” that Allen found to manage his projects is Microsoft Project 2000. Using Microsoft Project is like having your own project management assistant. It helps you create project plans of any size, track progress, identify problems before they wreck the deadline or the budget, and communicate project information efficiently.
If you are a professional project manager, Microsoft Project is designed with the phases of your discipline firmly in mind, so you’ll find it a good fit for your project. But even if all you know is that suddenly you’re responsible for managing a project with specific tasks, people, and a budget, Microsoft Project will help you learn what you need to know and guide you through the process.
If you’ve never used Microsoft Project but are familiar with other Microsoft programs, such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, you’ll have a head start getting up and running with Microsoft Project. |
