How to Track Schedules, Costs and Earned Value with Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project hits a steep learning curve climb when the project manager starts tracking the actual values of schedules, costs and analyzing earned value. It has a wide range of options to be configured. These affect one another, sometimes in drastic ways, and hence your results. You need to setup pre-requisites before you can track and control execution.

Secondly, although Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is available out of the box, its use requires elaborate procedures and reporting functions. Both schedule and cost reporting as well as EVA fall under the ""tracking"" activities a PM has to address during the complex task of project execution. (Planning a project is presented in a companion eBook by the author: Click Here).

This eBook concentrates on tracking, only, i.e., all execution activities that commence after the approval of a project plan. Procedures presented in terms of focused workouts are provided to allow you as the PM to track schedules and costs. These are tracked at both the Task and the Assignment levels. Material and Cost assignments also tackled. Each of these procedures requires elaborate ""dancing"" through the options provided by Microsoft Project. These are discussed in detail. Related facilities such as progress lines, updating groups of tasks and baselines are also addressed. 

39 Workouts are presented in a step by step fashion, supported by screen captures. The download also contains a good number of useful templates and supporting documents.

About the Author

Akram Najjar is an engineer currently working as a Business Technology Consultant. He completed a B. Sc. in physics and mathematics at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (1966). He took another B. Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire in England (1969).

Akram spent the first part of his career managing software development companies in Lebanon and the Arabian Gulf. By 1995, he concentrated on contractual work: IT Consulting, Business Process Reengineering, Project Management, Process Mapping, Data Analysis, Frameworks for Software Development and Technical Writing. He worked with various international organizations such as the World Bank, UNDP and the EU. In parallel with his consulting work, Akram focused on management training developing and conducting workshops for the above subjects. This and other books on his site are based on the experience acquired in these workshops.

The three types of books Akram writes (fiction, technical and puzzles) can be traced back to one incident when he was 12. His teacher introduced him to “Scientific American”. His name was David W. Miller. Mr. Miller’s whereabouts are not known today. But he is to be thanked and thanked again. The articles were above Akram’s head but his love for astronomy made the magazine fascinating. That eventually led him to study Physics and Mathematics. Coincidentally, the Greek Myths that were used to name the constellations got him interested in Literature, a love that led him to write fiction at a later date.

Akram also got hooked on the Mathematical Games column by Martin Gardner which was the reason Akram was set firmly in Puzzledom. Later on, it was second nature to him to work in software as a career. Software is an abstract practice that is full of puzzles whether you are designing, programming or debugging.

His eBooks are presented on two website. The www.marginalbooks.com site covers technical and literary books. All puzzles and games are presented on www.thehiddenpaw.com.