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I’ve been using MS Project for the last few years. I’m a remodeler and, as far as the software goes, pretty much self taught. I’m now at the point where our company is growing quite a bit and we are needing to make fuller use of the program (more than my self instruction has prepared me for). Anyone out there using it that can recommend any good books or training? I’m in the metro DC area.
Thanks,
Mike Patterson
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What is "Project" Mike?
blue
*Mike....for learning more about Excel...I went to CompUsa...And looked through all the books they had till I found the one with the most useful info for me.As to Project...I am just learning as I go...along with asking a relative questions...Near the stream,aj
*Aj, where in the hell have you been?blue
*I am a 52 year old builder thinking of going to work for another contractor as a project manager. There is training available on Microsoft Project from my local university extension. It will be for all users, not specifically construction companies. I would appreciate opinions on Project, especially how long does it take to be efficient with the software. I found National Construction Estimating software simple, Quickbooks Pro medium difficult, and Autocad to be very difficult to sustain over time. Thanks
*Gateway has online courses. Tried a demo with Quickbooks ........ thought it was pretty good. One caveat .....if you connection is snail slow, it can be frustrating. Not sure about the current cost ..... for a time they were offering a year for $100 ......as many courses as you could take in that time. Check with your local Gateway Country Store (if you have one) or Gateway online.
*TRy this site:http://www.atomiclearning.com/
*NoW sONNy is CatChIng oN!brian
*Hey Brian. You know that old saying about teaching an old dog new tricks. It isn't true!
*Good try Sonny -Nothing at atomic learning, nor did they have a referral??????????
*OK, here's a great one. A users group!http://www.mpug.org/Is that a "BINGO", or what! Found it on "google."
*Nice work Mr. Lycos.John
Mike,
In a previous life (as an engineer) I used MS-Project to manage
"programs" I lead....it is a "tool" designed for managing production....
I found it difficult to use ... it is oriented towards a factory producing
widgets where there is a very good model of the process being used.
I found it "FIXED" my schedules for me...taking hours to un-do...
if you try to get fancy be careful.....As far as training look
for someone who does training for industry...where I worked
they hired a consulting/training house to run a 1 WEEK intro course
followed by advanced courses 1+ week .....YIKES
Al
I used Project to manage various types of projects and found it useful. I taught myself how to use it, with a fair amiunt of trial & error. I agree with an earlier post: if you let it, the program will make adjustments that will take hours to fix. Save frequently, like you used to do on the old 286/386 machines and you'll have something to fall back on. I tried to keep it simple, and mostly used it to list all the various steps in a project, the anticipated or allowed time, and the contractor or responsible party. That was helpful to be able to pass out at meetings so everyone knew their part, and the other contractors as well. I also used the predecessor/successor functions, but not to their fullest extent. For example, it's plain that you should hang the sheetrock before painting the walls, but I got into trouble when I tried to factor in lead/lag times for the painting sub. One of the hardest things for me (and I never really figured it out) was how to get the schedules to print on paper the way I wanted. Sometimes I would have a last page with one line, and I could never get the margins or line spacing or fonts adjusted to eliminate the almost unused page.
I'm not being a wise guy but you were only using like 5% of Projects capabilities...BUT I never seemed to trust the results when I tried to use the other 95%....I don't know if it was lack of training or Project is like MOST MS software tools, anyway I could reliably get the dependencies to work including lead/lag times which was tricky to understand the logic behind their terminolgy .... when i got in trouble was trying to roll up several hundred tasks, then portion labor and cost to them....It seemed like Project Fixed my schedules about 25-30% of the time....I was never comfortable quoting cost and labor without lots of sanity checks....
The printer thing was really annoying....using the camera button helped...but the program seemed to be implemented with large format plotters in mind...we used C-size and D-size prints regularly.....otherwise you just couldn't read them...
Bottom line I would use it as a simple scheduling tool.....you'll really impress those customers who use it at work...but I'd be careful trying to do detailed schedule cost/labor estimates.....you might not realize Project assigned your labor at 200% loading....16 hours a day is easy only for a computer... :-)
No offense taken. The portion I used worked for me, so I didn't bother to take a formal class.
I found it very helpful for two events: For management types that didn't have construction experience, it gave them a good feel for what was involved, and they were impressed with the formality of the printout. Much better than hand drawn flow charts. Also better than simple typed lists. #2, when another department (or for homebuilders, the buyer) had a responsibility, like ordering phone lines or a particular piece of equipment, I would ask for their input as to lead times, and show that on the schedule. Then as the project progressed and we had weekly meetings, I could point out that their part needed to get started by a certain date, or it would delay the completion. It was easy to track the status of the long-lead items.
I have a book that my wife had for a class as part of her MBA schooling. She's been trying to get me to read it. It's called Project Management in Practice. It's based on MS project. I've never touched the program, but I too have been thinking it might be useful to our organization. But reading your descriptions of it's "fixing" features makes me think it's probably too microsoftian to be useful in the long run. I can't stand programs that second guess you. You can imagine how I hate Word...
Steve