Tools To Keep You On Track With MS Project

Do you keep track of your projects once they are entered into Project, or do you let the software do the work? Hands-off management styles might not always help you to keep your project on track. Here's how you can learn about the percentage complete tool and other ways of seeing if you're about to run out of time on your project...

If you're an intermediate to advanced user of project, you need to learn and recognise your project's "vital signs". As soon as they start to look unhealthy, you're in danger of your project derailing and spiralling into disorganisation. Yes, it can happen - because even with the best project management software in the world, with the best data entry there is: if you ignore the danger signs, human error is not always correctable with a few clicks.

Fortunately, even for the most disorganised of us, Project has tools to help you first see if your project and its elements are on track, and will warn you far before anything gets too messy to handle.

The percent complete tool

As with many project management programs, Project will start out only as good as the data that is fed into it. If you gave yourself an unrealistic timescale to complete a project, there is very little you can do (except perhaps to take a time management course in the future!). Common sense should prevail - if you have a 10-week project and it's now week 5, your percentages should be running between 40 and 60.

Anything else should be a warning sign - yes, even if you seem to be completing it ahead of schedule. This doesn't always mean you've brilliantly project managed everything: it could mean you've missed something out. Worse, if you budgeted for 10 weeks and you're spent up in week 5, the accounting department isn't going to be too happy on losing the interest
on the amounts they kept fluid for you to call upon in your project.

There isn't just one percentage, of course - you can see the work vs. the duration of your project. These should run in a synchronised way that makes sense to you. If you know that the project will be a slow starter and most tasks will be done at the end (like building, then launching a site) then you shouldn't be worried if you're beyond 50% and still looking at plans rather than results. You should always know what percentage you "should" be at for your project - the software doesn't always know what you do.

You should bear in mind that tasks are linked when you're looking for completion. Some are dominoes, and falling behind on one will cause havoc with the others. If any of your percentages are dangerously low or behind schedule, examine the knock-on effect of your other project elements. Do you need to bring in new team members? Do you need to alter your budget? Do you need (oh no!) to ask for an extension?

Many project managers make the mistake of starting out fully in touch with all elements of their project (after all, they are usually the ones who enter all the data into project management software), and then slacking off, allowing the program to tell them if they are on track or not, rather than keeping their feet on the floor at a grassroots level. Make sure this isn't you - remember that to keep your project on track, the manager has to be on track, too. By combining your project management skills with project management software, you too can keep on the right route to management success.