MS PROJECT 2003 Training for beginners

[minubony]

I have to give a training 10 people they all are professional some of them
never used ms project but some has little knowledge.
Now I am very worried as I don't have very good knowledge about this
subject. Specially overallocation FS, SS, etc.
Also how much I can cover in one day and where i will get good training
mannual with a good case studies.
So I can take them through the case studies. I hvae 10 days in my hand. I
need to understand Predessor and successor etc.
Please help
Thanks in advanced.

 

[John]

I have to give a training 10 people they all are professional some of them
never used ms project but some has little knowledge.
Now I am very worried as I don't have very good knowledge about this
subject. Specially overallocation FS, SS, etc.
Also how much I can cover in one day and where i will get good training
mannual with a good case studies.
So I can take them through the case studies. I hvae 10 days in my hand. I
need to understand Predessor and successor etc.
Please help
Thanks in advanced.

minubony,
I'll give you a couple of suggestions. First, go to our MVP website at,
http://www.mvps.org/project/links.htm, and click on the link to fellow
MVP, Mike Glen's tutorials. That can at least get you started on a
training plan.

You could also get the book, "Ultimate learning guide to Microsoft
Office Project 2007" by fellow MVPs, Dale Howard and Gary Chefetz. Even
though it was written for Project 2007 the majority of Project basics
are covered in nice detail. Dale and Gary also have on-line training
classes. You can find out more by visiting their website at,
http://msprojectexperts.com.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[B Sai Prasad [PMP]]

Hi -

Since you have very minimal days to get the team trained on this tool and
wanted to focus on basics of the using the tool, my suggest is to register or
view the on-demand [FREE] webcasts available at
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx on Microsoft Office Project.

Please let me know if it helps.

Regards
Sai [PMP]

 

[Dave]

I have to give a training 10 people they all are professional some of them
never used ms project but some has little knowledge.
Now I am very worried as I don't have very good knowledge about this
subject. Specially overallocation FS, SS, etc.
Also how much I can cover in one day and where i will get good training
mannual with a good case studies.
So I can take them through the case studies. I hvae 10 days in my hand. I
need to understand Predessor and successor etc.
Please help
Thanks in advanced.

It's quite a tall order if you are not confident on the subjects you
identify. In the 10 days you have it seems to me that you will find it
difficult to pass yourself off as knowledgeable on the subject. There
are plenty of books on the subject available from the FAQ pages from
this site but it will take you a substantial proportion of the 10 days
available to go through one of those.

What is the context here? Are the trainees external or internal? If
these are external people and your company is charging for the service
you run a number of risks including damaging your company's reputation.

At the end of the day, it isn't feasible to train somebody on a subject
you don't know about. Also, in monetary terms, although it may cost
more to get a real trainer, the actual value of that training may be
greater.

Sorry if this is discouraging but you need to realistically look at what
you can expect to achieve. On the plus side, you don't have to know
much more than the trainees to carry it off.

Whatever the scenario, I think I'd be having serious discussions with my
boss about this, but you may already be past that point.

Good luck.

 

[davegb]

It's quite a tall order if you are not confident on the subjects you
identify.  In the 10 days you have it seems to me that you will find it
difficult to pass yourself off as knowledgeable on the subject.  There
are plenty of books on the subject available from the FAQ pages from
this site but it will take you a substantial proportion of the 10 days
available to go through one of those.

What is the context here?  Are the trainees external or internal?  If
these are external people and your company is charging for the service
you run a number of risks including damaging your company's reputation.

At the end of the day, it isn't feasible to train somebody on a subject
you don't know about.  Also, in monetary terms, although it may cost
more to get a real trainer, the actual value of that training may be
greater.

Sorry if this is discouraging but you need to realistically look at what
you can expect to achieve.  On the plus side, you don't have to know
much more than the trainees to carry it off.

Whatever the scenario, I think I'd be having serious discussions with my
boss about this, but you may already be past that point.

Good luck.

I agree with Dave. Project is difficult to teach in the first place,
because it's a pretty complex application, and there's an underlying
theory (Critical Path Method Scheduling) without at least some
knowledge of, you just can't really understand how the software works.
Beyond that, teaching scheduling without some knowledge of Project
Management itself is ill-advised at best. At your current level of
knowledge of Project, I can practically guarantee you'll be teaching
as many wrong things as right things. Would you teach XL without some
knowledge of math? I hope not.

I strongly encourage you to find someone who understands this
application. Even if your knowledge of Project was several times what
it is, you just don't have the foundation to try and show others what
this fairly abstruse tool does.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[John]

I agree with Dave. Project is difficult to teach in the first place,
because it's a pretty complex application, and there's an underlying
theory (Critical Path Method Scheduling) without at least some
knowledge of, you just can't really understand how the software works.
Beyond that, teaching scheduling without some knowledge of Project
Management itself is ill-advised at best. At your current level of
knowledge of Project, I can practically guarantee you'll be teaching
as many wrong things as right things. Would you teach XL without some
knowledge of math? I hope not.

I strongly encourage you to find someone who understands this
application. Even if your knowledge of Project was several times what
it is, you just don't have the foundation to try and show others what
this fairly abstruse tool does.

Hope this helps in your world.

Daves,
I should have included a qualifier in my response. Based on the original
post I tend to agree with both of your assessments. There exists a
possibility that poster and his associates will only use Project in its
very basic form (i.e. rudimentary scheduling) and in that case my
suggested training is probably beneficial. On the other hand, if the
poster's intent is to bring everybody up to speed on the full project
management capabilities of Project, then a "quick study" ain't gonna
make it.

John
Project MVP