OK, we will start our fictitious Project. But first we have to know some basic things about Project, Project Management, Project Manager, etc.

Do you know what the Project really is? According to PMI (www.pmi.org) “A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”

What is Project Management? “Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements”

Who is Project Manager? “Project managers are assigned by the performing organization to achieve project objectives. They are responsible for the project success or fail. 97% of successful projects were managed by experienced project managers”

Why should someone choose some Project? There are many reasons for choosing the Project, for example:

• Business need (we need to build a new equipment, because we want to spread our market share)
• Social need (we need a project, and it has one goal: TO REDUCE SMOKING IN OUR CITY)
• For fun (I want to build the biggest house in my village)

Every Project must have a PROJECT OBJECTIVE, and it means “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE”. Here is an example. You have a Project: “Building the new house for just married couple”. The Project Objective for that project is: Resolving so called “Housing need” e.g. to make a place for living for the just married couple.

What is MICROSOFT PROJECT 2010?  Again, and again, and again, you will find a definition that “Microsoft Project 2010 is PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE!” I don’t share that opinion. In many relevant Project Management books you will find there is no such a thing like a “PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE”.

Does it mean, that MICROFT PROJECT 2010 doesn’t take a significant place in Project Management? Of course, NOT!

According to Wikipedia “Microsoft Projects a project management software (IT IS NOT IT IS A TOOL) program developed and sold by Microsoft which is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads. The application creates critical path schedules, and critical chain and event chain methodology third-party add-ons are also available. Schedules can be resource leveled, and chains are visualized in a Gantt chart. Additionally, Project can recognize different classes of users. These different classes of users can have differing access levels to projects, views, and other data. Custom objects such as calendars, views, tables, filters, and fields are stored in an enterprise global which is shared by all users.”

Although it is powerful tool it can not do everything. The most common, and the biggest mistake is that many people think: “If I have Microsoft Project 2010, and if I am a powerful user, I can skip a lot of project management activities, because MS PROJECT will do them for me!”. NO!!!!! You should always Manage a Project properly, and you should always apply your PM knowledge and skills no matter if you have a powerful tool like, for instance, MS PROJECT.

Here is an example. Is Microsoft Project suitable for Quality Management? From my point of view, it is not! Can you identify all risk in your Project with MS PROJECT? No, you can not. Can you communicate with your team only with MS PROJECT? No, you can not.

From no on, I will write this blog about using MS PROJECT 2010 PROFESSIONAL! After I finish (somewhere in the future), I will write about MS PROJECT SERVER, PROJECT WEB APP, and ENTERPRISE PROJECT MANAGEMENT!

In my next post I will write about Project Management Process Groups, Project Management Knowledge Areas, and how suitable MS PROJECT 2010 is for those Process Groups and Knowledge Areas!

And last, but VERY IMPORTANT, please give me a feedback! Tell me how do you like this blog, criticize me, tell me if you don’t agree, do whatever you want, but just give me a FEEDBACK, pleaseeeeeeeee

Best Regards,