Chapter 12: Tracking Project Progress

Overview

When you create a project plan in Microsoft Project, the work doesn’t end with the approval of the plan. Being an effective project manager means being able to develop a realistic project plan, manage the implementation of the plan, make adjustments to the plan when warranted, and ultimately learn from the process. You must be able to look at the whole project, and anticipate the implications of a task that is slipping behind schedule or one that is miraculously completed ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, many project managers spend a lot of time developing the plan and then become too wrapped up in the details of its implementation to manage it effectively. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to analyze the progress of a project, and make changes to keep the project on track. We’ll cover the following topics:

• Updating tasks

• Reviewing variances

• Printing summary reports

• Analyzing earned value

• Keeping the project on task