Microsoft Project - Tutorial

How to create a Microsoft project schedule

In this tutorial you will be learning how to create a project schedule by entering estimated
duration of tasks and enter predecessor information.

Entering estimated duration

Estimates entered in the project are based upon experience, talking to experts and the people
performing the tasks. For this example we will assume we have done that and are ready to
enter the information. We will go to the duration column and to the lowest specific task such
as Interview Users which will take 7 days or Define Requirements which will only take
one day and so on. We only enter estimated duration for the tasks and not the deliverables.
Ms Project will fill these in for you giving the times of the tasks below that deliverable. The
duration will not be counted up at the deliverable only the longest task is reflected, this will
cause all the tasks start on the same date. Also notice the duration default is days. You can
change this with shortkeys to:

m: minutes

h: hours

d: days

w: weeks

mo: months

y: years

Microsoft Project - Tutorial

Entering predecessor information

Next we will enter the predecessor information for the tasks. You might need to expand the
task view and so increase the calendar view to see the predecessor column. Our first task is
Interview Users which doesnt have a predecessor. For the next task we will enter the
number 3 as predecessor. This number comes from the row association with Interview
Users.
We will fill this out for all the tasks. Task Code A and task Code B can have the same
predecessor, this means they will start at the same time. Integration and Integrate
SW/HW have multiple predecessors, this means all of the predecessors have to be finished
before this task can start. On the calendar view you will notice the bars have extend out as
they represent the schedule and too the start and finish dates have changed as they reflect the
predecessors. Only fill in predecessor information under tasks at the lowest level and not
under summary tasks.

Microsoft Project - Tutorial

Inserting lag

When we look closer at our projects we notice that the 7 days for purchasing hardware isnt
accurate. It only takes 1 day to order it and 7 days to deliver it. There is a lag relationship
between purchasing and assembling hardware. We need to double click the assembling
hardware task for its property window to open. We will fill in the lag under the predecessor
box. We will be changing the lag from 0 to 6 for the shipping to take place. You also notice a
predecessor has a type for when to start.

Finished-toStart (FS)Task (B) cannot start until another task (A) finishes.

Start-to-start (SS)Task (B) cannot start until another task (A) starts.

Finish-to-finish (FF)Task (B) cannot finish until another task (A) finishes.

Start-to-finish (SF)Task (B) cannot finishe until another task (A) starts.

Microsoft Project - Tutorial

Change schedule time scale

When projects turn into months or even years the schedule view might not be so easy in the
eye when it is set for days. To change this you will have to go to format and then timescale.
At this menu you can change the middle tier to quarters and the bottom tier to months to get a
better view.