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davegb
Learning Project
The best way to learn Project is to take a class, if you can. A word of
caution. There are a lot of people teaching Project in what we call
"pushbutton" style. That is, they studied it in a book and started
teaching it because there's money to be made and no one local who
teaches it. Press this button, and this happens. Project is not like
Excel or Word, you can't just go in and make it work, or at least most
of us couldn't (I sure couldn't). There's an underlying theory called
Critical Path Method scheduling on which Project is based. Without at
least some understanding of this method, Project is rather formidable.
I suggest you find a way to learn CPM asap. The students I teach who've
been using the software a while often comment after they hear the
section on CPM that I give the first half-day of my 2 day intro course,
that the CPM section answered half of their questions they had coming
to class, and that that alone was worth the price of the class. CPM
isn't hard to learn, just a little confusing to some at first. If you
can find a teacher who knows CPM and Project is ideal. If not, if you
have any kind of a technical mind, you could work it out on your own
with a book or online.
Remember that schedling is only about 10% of Project Management. The
Project Management Institute's Body of Knowledge identifies 10 areas of
knowledge one much know to be a certified Project Manager. These
include Cost, Communications, Subcontract management, Risk and Human
Resources as well as scheduling.
I highly reccommend James P. Lewis' "Project Planning, Scheduling and
Control" as a good and thorough basic text on PM. It contains a good
section on CPM as well as a lot of other good information. To
paraphrase Lewis, "To give someone a powerful scheduling software who
has no knowledge of project management is only to enable them to
document their failures precisely".
Hope this helps in your world.
The best way to learn Project is to take a class, if you can. A word of
caution. There are a lot of people teaching Project in what we call
"pushbutton" style. That is, they studied it in a book and started
teaching it because there's money to be made and no one local who
teaches it. Press this button, and this happens. Project is not like
Excel or Word, you can't just go in and make it work, or at least most
of us couldn't (I sure couldn't). There's an underlying theory called
Critical Path Method scheduling on which Project is based. Without at
least some understanding of this method, Project is rather formidable.
I suggest you find a way to learn CPM asap. The students I teach who've
been using the software a while often comment after they hear the
section on CPM that I give the first half-day of my 2 day intro course,
that the CPM section answered half of their questions they had coming
to class, and that that alone was worth the price of the class. CPM
isn't hard to learn, just a little confusing to some at first. If you
can find a teacher who knows CPM and Project is ideal. If not, if you
have any kind of a technical mind, you could work it out on your own
with a book or online.
Remember that schedling is only about 10% of Project Management. The
Project Management Institute's Body of Knowledge identifies 10 areas of
knowledge one much know to be a certified Project Manager. These
include Cost, Communications, Subcontract management, Risk and Human
Resources as well as scheduling.
I highly reccommend James P. Lewis' "Project Planning, Scheduling and
Control" as a good and thorough basic text on PM. It contains a good
section on CPM as well as a lot of other good information. To
paraphrase Lewis, "To give someone a powerful scheduling software who
has no knowledge of project management is only to enable them to
document their failures precisely".
Hope this helps in your world.