Re: Simple project template
- From: "Steve House [Project MVP]" <sjhouse.remove.this@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:15:08 -0500
Project Management as a business discipline has been around for much longer than that, initially appearing in the 1920s and 30s. It really came into its own as a managment tool with the Apollo program during the 1960s, long before the advent of the personal computer and computer software to take over some of the calculation details..
The problem with templates such as you're seeking for projects large or small is that they really can't be as generic as you want. Any project plan is going to be focussed on a specific goal and the nature of the goal determines what activities are going to be required. Now I can create a template for building a house because the majority of the tasks and the types of skills required to build a house are pretty much the same for all sorts of houses I might need to build. It might take 3 days to place the roof beams on a 1200 square foot bungalow and 3 weeks to do it on a 20,000 square foot super-mansion but both sorts of houses are going to need roof beams placed on their frames. So a template for housing construction is going to have a "place roof beams" task in virtually all cases. But you really can't come up with a list of activities that must take place to successfully conclude a generic "project" with an undefined goal because the things you do in each one will be different from those in all the others.
Be sure to keep clear in your mind the differences between a project management program and a personal planner and calendaring program. A project planner does not receive as its input the schedule of things you need to do. It takes as input the overall objective, the breakdown of the specific activities required to achieve it and the way those activities relate to each other, and the resources you have at your disposal with which to conduct those activities and from that generates a work schedule and cost estimate. That's quite different from entering tasks, the dates you expect to do them, and their deadlines into a personal to-do list.
Setting up a new project can be as complex or as simple as you make it. Simple projects with a few steps and a couple of resources will be very simple. Complex projects with hundreds of steps and dozens of resources that need to be coordinated will be more involved.
HTH
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
"Pavel" <levap.adlac@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OLVWQg6TGHA.5148@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
When Project Management came out, 15-20 years ago, can't remember the name but it wasn't Microsoft, there was a template for a simple project, disregarding the complex issues involved in a real project. PM gradually became a very specialized field and the marketing has written off ordinary people as if they did not need to plan their activities, which they mostly don't (shame).
I do have Win Project 2003 (for some strange reason I won't go in here) and I used to work with it, mainly in a supervising capacity.
There are situations in my daily (retired) life where I can use something simple (because of progressive forgetfulness) to plan an activity/project. Setting up a new project in WinProject seems too much of a hassle, unless I can use some template, which I recall existed way back then.
I'd prefer to use the Microsoft family of software instead of getting something new.
Any suggestions to this old fart?
Thanks.
Pavel
.
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