Corporate MS Project Training: Curriculum and Benefits

Why self-teaching Microsoft Project quickly reaches its limits

Microsoft Project looks like a spreadsheet, which leads many users to handle it like one: they enter dates by hand, color-code rows and adjust the Gantt chart by eye. The file looks like a schedule, but it recalculates nothing when a task falls behind.

In reality, the tool runs on a scheduling engine that combines durations, links, calendars and resources. Until that engine is understood, every change produces unexpected effects, and users end up switching off automatic scheduling to regain control. Structured training recovers the time lost working around the tool rather than using it.

A typical Microsoft Project training curriculum

A solid curriculum follows the order in which a schedule is actually built, from creating the file through to tracking. Each step builds on the previous one, so participants leave with a complete schedule rather than a collection of isolated features.

• Setting up the project: start date, working calendar, public holidays
• Building the work breakdown structure and summary tasks
• Linking tasks, choosing the dependency type and managing lead and lag time
• Creating and assigning resources, and distinguishing duration, work and capacity
• Identifying and resolving resource overallocations
• Saving a baseline, entering progress and analyzing variances
• Reading the critical path and producing views and reports for the steering committee

Tailoring the content to each participant’s role

Not all participants use the tool in the same way. The scheduler who builds and updates the files needs an in-depth command of the calculation engine. The project manager who makes the trade-offs mainly needs to know how to read a critical path, interpret a variance from the baseline and simulate a scenario. Finally, the manager reads reports and needs to understand what they show and what they don’t.

It is also useful to check beforehand which version the company uses, whether internal templates exist and which naming conventions are in place. Training on a version or configuration different from the one on participants’ own computers creates immediate frustration when they return to their team.

Working on the company’s real schedules

Generic exercises, such as building a house or organizing a trade show, help people learn the features but transfer poorly. In-house training works better when it is based on a project representative of the organization, anonymized if need be, which participants rebuild step by step during the session.

This is the approach Dyonysos takes in its Microsoft Project training: contextualized exercises built from the organization’s projects and constraints, so that the schedule produced in the classroom can serve as a working basis the very next day. The session can also result in a shared schedule template, which extends the training well beyond its end.

The scheduling mistakes training should correct

Certain bad habits show up in almost every file audited. Naming them explicitly during the training, with examples, is often more effective than a long theoretical presentation.

• Imposing fixed start dates instead of linking tasks
• Confusing a task’s duration with the amount of work it represents
• Assigning resources to summary tasks
• Ignoring overallocation warnings
• Forgetting to save a baseline before tracking begins
• Leaving tasks without successors, which distorts the critical path

Measuring the benefits a few weeks after the session

The impact of Microsoft Project training shows up in the files themselves. A few weeks after the session, review a sample of schedules: are the tasks linked, has a baseline been saved, is progress entered regularly, is the critical path consistent?

Also look at how the schedule is used in meetings: is it projected and discussed, or does it remain a document nobody opens? If difficulties persist, targeted follow-up support on the real files, such as Dyonysos offers through its consulting services, can remove the obstacles without repeating a full training course.