MS Project: Easier Project Mgmt & Maximum Resource Utilization - Essay Sample

Microsoft Project (MS Project) is a software used for project management. MS Project is designed to assist the project manager to develop a project schedule by organizing tasks and allocating resources to such tasks. Additionally, it helps the project manager to optimize resource usage within constraints such as cost. The project manager is, therefore, able to manage the availability of resources. MS Project, therefore, makes project management a lot easier and ensures maximum utilization of resources.

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The project manager assigns tasks to different resources and estimates the assignment work. The MS Project helps the project manager to specify the time and place where each task is to be completed. The tasks are assigned to various team members and allocated the required resources. This makes the planning and scheduling process smooth as tasks are organized in order of priority, everyone is aware of their tasks, and resources are appropriately allocated in the order of availability.

MS Project creates a project budget based on tasks and resource availability. After tasks are organized and resources allocated, the program calculates the cost by multiplying the work by the rates of resources. This calculation is rolled up for all the tasks and then to a summary page, and the project manager can know the total cost of the entire project. Each resource has its page; hence one resource can be allocated to different tasks. This ensures that resources are maximized in use and within cost constraints.

MS Project uses constraints to create a link between a task and a given date. Such constraints include As Soon As possible, which enables the program to schedule tasks based on its duration and dependencies. However, this constraint might cause delays when the project has a short duration. Must On ensures the task is done at a specific date. It might, however, interfere with a future rescheduling if the due date has other tasks linked to it. Must On is the most common constraint because most projects have specific due dates.

The project manager must know the resources that are used for each task throughout the project. MS Project can be used to manage the availability of resources for each task in two ways. Firstly, the project manager can change the resource availability in the program by configuring the periods in which the given resource would be unavailable. Secondly, the project manager can change the working time by creating a non-working time for a specific resource. MS Project is hence a tool that is important for project management that maximizes resource usage and ensures projects are timely completed within the constraints.

References

Larson, E., & Gray, C. (2013). Project management: The managerial process with MS project. McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from;

https://lib.hpu.edu.vn/handle/123456789/32828