From Book News, Inc.
This book/CD-ROM reference offers solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds in a concise, fast-answer format. Material is arranged around project fundamentals and tasks related to developing the project plan, tracking progress, reporting and analysis, and managing multiple projects. Other themes include integrating Microsoft Project with other programs, collaborating as a team, and managing projects across the enterprise. The CD-ROM contains an HTML interface, Microsoft add-ins and third party utilities, Web links, and a trial version of Microsoft Project Standard edition. Stover has written many computer books and user manuals.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Description
Dig into Microsoft® Project 2002—and discover how you can really put your project management skills to work! This supremely organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and handy workarounds in concise, fast-answer format. It’s all muscle and no fluff. Find the best and fastest ways to perform everyday tasks, and challenge yourself to new levels of Microsoft Project mastery!• Ace the essentials—from defining project scope to analyzing and reporting results• Orchestrate tasks, resources, time, and costs• Enable team members to collaborate and stay on track through the Web• Manage multiple projects and subprojects• Track progress, monitor variances, save a slipping schedule!• Exchange or link project information with other Microsoft Office programs • Master the tools for leading enterprise-wide initiatives to success• Build custom solutions with macros and Microsoft Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA)CD-ROM FEATURES:• Intuitive HTML interface• Extensive collection of Microsoft add-ins and third-party utilities, demos, and trials• Complete eBook—easy to browse and print!• Sample chapters from other Microsoft Press® INSIDE OUT books• Web links to Microsoft Office Tools on the Web, online troubleshooters, and product support• Interactive tutorials• Microsoft Visio® auto-demos• 60-day trial version of Microsoft Project Standard edition

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
This is the definitive guide to both versions of Microsoft Project -- both Microsoft Project Standard 2002 and Microsoft￯﾿ﾽs high-end ￯﾿ﾽMicrosoft Solution for Enterprise Project Management.￯﾿ﾽ The latter, comprising Microsoft Project Professional 2002 and Microsoft Project Server 2002, is the first version of Microsoft Project that centralizes resource management for entire organizations, permits sophisticated modeling and scenario analysis, and has the potential to standardize project reporting enterprise-wide.

The authors begin with an overview of each product, then offer a detailed introduction to the art of project management itself: creating project plans and controlling your projects using your plan as a roadmap. You￯﾿ﾽll also learn exactly how Microsoft Project fits into the process. Even if you￯﾿ﾽre an experienced project manager, you￯﾿ﾽll appreciate the coverage of integrating Project into your project management workflow, and of how each project stakeholder can interact with Project or utilize its outputs.

This 1,200-page book has room for systematic coverage of every aspect of using Project 2002: entering and organizing tasks and resources; viewing your project￯﾿ﾽs status; incorporating costs and reviewing budgets; and refining your project to adjust critical paths, resource workloads, and key dates.

Speaking of dates, the authors provide detailed coverage of scheduling: setting task durations (and making sure they￯﾿ﾽre realistic); establishing task dependencies; working with flexible and inflexible constraints; adding lead time; setting milestones; and so forth.

Once you￯﾿ﾽve done all that, you￯﾿ﾽll learn how to track your project￯﾿ﾽs progress with Project 2002 -- and how to adjust your finely-honed plan for the realities of Planet Earth.

Throughout Microsoft Project 2002 Inside Out, you￯﾿ﾽll find extensive discussions of all of Project 2002￯﾿ﾽs significant new features, beginning with the Project Guide wizards that streamline and simplify the creation of individual projects.

Much of what￯﾿ﾽs new reflects Microsoft￯﾿ﾽs determination to integrate Project ever more thoroughly with the rest of Microsoft Office. For example, you￯﾿ﾽll discover how to import tasks from an Excel worksheet (more projects are first launched in Excel than have ever been launched in Project); how to add resources from your Outlook or Windows address book, import Outlook tasks into Project, even -- if you￯﾿ﾽre really a Microsoft shop through and through -- utilize ￯﾿ﾽWeb Parts￯﾿ﾽ from your customized Outlook/SharePoint ￯﾿ﾽDigital Dashboard.￯﾿ﾽ

There￯﾿ﾽs a full chapter on managing teams using Microsoft Project Web Access, the new Microsoft Project Server web interface that provides powerful portfolio and resource management tools, real-time reporting, and scenario analysis designed to give executives an up-to-the-minute window on the status of all their projects. Users of this web interface do need a Microsoft Project Server Client Access License (CAL), but they don￯﾿ﾽt need a full version of Project, just a recent copy of Internet Explorer -- making this solution viable for a far wider range of companies and project teams.

You￯﾿ﾽll walk through setting up Microsoft Project Web Access and configuring its diverse options; then using its web-based capabilities to assign tasks and send assignments; update task information and incorporate task updates into your project plan; track issues, and more.

You￯﾿ﾽll also find detailed coverage of other enterprise features built into the high-end version of Microsoft Project 2002, "Enterprise Edition." Most important, you￯﾿ﾽll learn how to import resource information for use by Project￯﾿ﾽs enterprise features; and how to build a cross-functional project team that draws upon the entire organization, querying your enterprise resource database for folks with the appropriate skills and availability. If you￯﾿ﾽre at a rarefied level of management, of course, you need a high-level view of many projects at the same time. Microsoft Project 2002 Inside Out shows how to get that information using the new Project Portfolio feature.

If you haven￯﾿ﾽt used Microsoft Project, or haven￯﾿ﾽt upgraded to Project 2002, you￯﾿ﾽll appreciate the complete 60-day trial version of Microsoft Project Standard Edition on CD-ROM. You￯﾿ﾽll also appreciate the CD￯﾿ﾽs extensive collection of Microsoft and third-party tools and add-ins; and the complete eBook that allows you to take Microsoft Project 2002 Inside Out anywhere your notebook PC can go -- all the way up to the executive suite. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dig into Microsoft Project 2002?and discover how you can really put your project management skills to work! This supremely organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and handy workarounds in concise, fast-answer format. It's all muscle and no fluff. Find the best and fastest ways to perform everyday tasks, and challenge yourself to new levels of Microsoft Project mastery. The companion CD-ROM is loaded with add-ins, third-party tools, a printable eBook, helpful Web links, and more.


About the Authors

Teresa Stover first encountered formal project management in 1986 as the technical publications supervisor for a startup technology company, figuring out how she and her staff could complete seven documentation projects at once. With an early version of Apple￯﾿ﾽs MacProject, soon PERT charts were papering her office walls, and light bulbs were going off in her head about the wonders of project management. In 1987, she started Stover Writing Services and was managing documentation projects for multiple clients. These clients have included Apple Computer, National Semiconductor, Boeing, MetLife, Unisys, and most significantly, the Microsoft Project User Assistance team. For these clients she has developed books, online help, tutorials, and multimedia productions. Having won seven Society for Technical Communications awards, including a Best In Show, Teresa￯﾿ﾽs other books include titles on Windows, Office, Team Manager, and Microsoft Money. When not writing in her Victorian home office in southern Oregon, Teresa conducts workshops on computer, business, and project management topics. She also volunteers for the American Red Cross, and ￯﾿ﾽplays store￯﾿ﾽ Saturdays at her husband￯﾿ﾽs shop, Stovepipe Antiques. Teresa can be reached at sws@echoweb.net.

Stephen T. Adams has been writing Basic since it was an acronymn, back in the 1970s. Originally training to be an intelligence analyst with the CIA, he changed directions in 1990 and began a career in the software industry. He has worked in product support, software testing, and as both an editor and a writer, publishing his first book in 1992. Stephen was an award-winning technical writer for Microsoft Project from 1996 until 2002, when he took a developer position at Microsoft. An avid auto racing fan, Stephen can occasionally be found tearing it up at the local track, where he likes to pretend he￯﾿ﾽs the next Ayrton Senna.

Bonnie Biafore always got things done. When she started to use Gantt charts, she realized the term was ￯﾿ﾽproject management.￯﾿ﾽ In 1996, she started a project management consulting company, MonteVista Solutions, Inc, but soon added writing to her offerings. Redlining others￯﾿ﾽ writing and documenting how to use software tools was a lifelong habit. Exploiting this inclination, she authored the Complete Idiot￯﾿ﾽs Guide to Online Personal Finance. She writes a monthly column on investing using the Internet for Better Investing magazine and is finishing a stock study handbook for the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC). When she isn￯﾿ﾽt working, she roams the nearby mountains with her husband, Pete, and their two Bernese Mountain Dogs, Emma and Shea.

James A. Scott is a rare case of a history major done good. A strong fascination with computer technology and software development quickly pulled him back from the dark side in the mid-1990s, leading him down the path towards technical writing. Since then he has been involved with technical writing, creating Web sites (both copy and code), working with XML when it was almost brand new, and finding ways to enjoy being handed increasingly difficult subjects to write about. During off-times, James can usually be found somewhere in the vicinity of a football (soccer) field.

Ken Speer has been involved with project management since the mid-1980s, when mainframe-based project management systems were the cutting edge. He has experienced the evolution of project management technology firsthand, through the use of Microsoft Project version 1.0 to the present. Ken has been a project management consultant since 1996, with experience in government contracting, aerospace, finance, software development, and telecommunications projects. Along with using it himself, Ken has mentored other professionals in the use of Microsoft Project. An English teacher and gymnastics coach in a ￯﾿ﾽprevious life,￯﾿ﾽ currently Ken￯﾿ﾽs biggest extracurricular interests are music and bicycling, followed closed by hiking and traveling.

SYNOPSIS