Two ro more projects on one calendar?

[JustSomeGuy]

Managing two or three projects simultaneously is difficult without a calendar
that shows all three at once....but at the same time I need to be able to
share individual project calendars with individual project teams. Is there a
way to 'layer' multiple projects on the calendar so I can (in effect) 'view
all layers' to see a combined overview of all projects, and then view
'individual layers' to view selected projects individually? (MS Project
2003)

I've never used Project before, but need something faster/better than
Powerpoint or Word to construct and maintain multiple simultaneous layered
project calendars...there's gotta be a better way that can be quickly learned
and implemented. The Project Calendar seems to be a simple and easy "tool" in
itself, on the surface...but if it takes many hours or days to learn how to
make it do what I want it to do, there's no time.

 

[Steve House]

I get the feeling you might be looking for Project to do the wrong thing for
you. Creating a calendar view is actually one of the least important
aspects Project's functionality, as good as they are for communicating the
schedule. It's not a tool to document project plans that already exist in
the same sense that you might use PowerPoint to draw a Gantt Chart or Word
to fill in a planning calendar page. Rather it is a tool designed to be
used by the person who is charged with the responsiblity for initially
creating the project plan to calculate what the consequences to the schedule
and budget will be as he or she makes the managerial decisions regarding
what work is to be done in the project and the deployment of the resources
that will do it. Just like one of Excel's jobs is "what-if" modeling in
finance, Project's main task is also "what-if," computing the results that
one will obtain IF one structured the work and deployed the resources in a
certain manner, calculating the results of that case in order to see if it
would achieve the project's objectives of time and budget. True, Project
illustrates the results of those calculations and documents the resulting
schedule in a variety of useful ways but it's primary task is to compute the
schedule you're going to be able to achieve, not so much illustrate the
schedule you want. If your frustration is that Project insists on changing
things when you input them, the most likely cause is the schedules you are
trying to get it to document are unrealistic or unworkable as they stand and
need to be modified in order to be successful. You don't tell it the
schedule; it tells you the schedule. So in that sense, you may be having
trouble getting it to do what you want it to because the schedule you want
it to display is impossible to do as you have asked Project to structure it.

HTH


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[JustSomeGuy]

Good points, Steve. Guess I need to post a differently worded question on
some other forum. What I need is to find a fast, easy multi project calendar
graphic utility...if anything like that exists anywhere. Thanks for the
well-worded description of what Project is...and isn't.

I get the feeling you might be looking for Project to do the wrong thing for
you. Creating a calendar view is actually one of the least important
aspects Project's functionality, as good as they are for communicating the
schedule. It's not a tool to document project plans that already exist in
the same sense that you might use PowerPoint to draw a Gantt Chart or Word
to fill in a planning calendar page. Rather it is a tool designed to be
used by the person who is charged with the responsiblity for initially
creating the project plan to calculate what the consequences to the schedule
and budget will be as he or she makes the managerial decisions regarding
what work is to be done in the project and the deployment of the resources
that will do it. Just like one of Excel's jobs is "what-if" modeling in
finance, Project's main task is also "what-if," computing the results that
one will obtain IF one structured the work and deployed the resources in a
certain manner, calculating the results of that case in order to see if it
would achieve the project's objectives of time and budget. True, Project
illustrates the results of those calculations and documents the resulting
schedule in a variety of useful ways but it's primary task is to compute the
schedule you're going to be able to achieve, not so much illustrate the
schedule you want. If your frustration is that Project insists on changing
things when you input them, the most likely cause is the schedules you are
trying to get it to document are unrealistic or unworkable as they stand and
need to be modified in order to be successful. You don't tell it the
schedule; it tells you the schedule. So in that sense, you may be having
trouble getting it to do what you want it to because the schedule you want
it to display is impossible to do as you have asked Project to structure it.

HTH


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Managing two or three projects simultaneously is difficult without a
calendar
that shows all three at once....but at the same time I need to be able to
share individual project calendars with individual project teams. Is
there a
way to 'layer' multiple projects on the calendar so I can (in effect)
'view
all layers' to see a combined overview of all projects, and then view
'individual layers' to view selected projects individually? (MS Project
2003)

I've never used Project before, but need something faster/better than
Powerpoint or Word to construct and maintain multiple simultaneous layered
project calendars...there's gotta be a better way that can be quickly
learned
and implemented. The Project Calendar seems to be a simple and easy "tool"
in
itself, on the surface...but if it takes many hours or days to learn how
to
make it do what I want it to do, there's no time.