Successfully Presenting Your Microsoft Project Reports

Objectives Translate your project details into a brief summary which clearly conveys the project plan/status What to include in a project status report Presenting one or more projects on a single page, at a high level Reports: Highlighting milestones and project/phase/task hierarchies Link ancillary data to your report Distribution: Web, reader, Word, PowerPoint Milestones only Critical path Finish dates Budget/Cost Multi-tier reports Earned value Key milestones roll-up Stoplight at-a-glance status

Delivery Mediums What are your options? Printed Gantt chart Microsoft Project reports Earned Value Report Critical Tasks Report

Delivery Mediums Drawing packages: PowerPoint, Visio, Excel

Delivery Mediums 3rd Party Tools: Milestones Professional, Milestones Project Companion, PERT Chart Expert, WBS Chart Pro,… Manually draw from MSP data Export into another tool Automate with a custom program

What to include in a project status report Whatever “they” tell you to Baseline/Current finish dates Major milestones Percent complete status Delivery dates

What to include in a project status report Phase status (drill-down)

What to include in a project status report Phase status (drill-down) Planned and current costs Forecasted costs

What to include in a project status report Phase status (drill-down) Planned and current costs Forecasted costs Earned value

From Project details to presentation summary How do you get from here... Manually draw from MSP data Export into another tool Automate with a custom program ...to here?

Create presentation reports using Milestones MS Project-to-Milestones Professional import wizard

Critical tasks report There can’t be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. --Henry Kissinger Report status of critical tasks, only, by importing

Critical tasks report Highlight critical tasks within all tasks Filter for critical tasks

Finish dates report When will it be finished? Display all finish dates Finish dates rolled-up Finish date milestones Stoplight status: Not started In progress Complete Percent Complete

Finish dates report Display all finish dates Finish dates rolled-up

Budget status report A budget takes the fun out of money. — Mason Cooley, U.S. aphorist Budget, cost, variance Graph by time period & cumulative

Reporting earned value Earned value for the “detailed numbers person”

Reporting earned value Earned value for the visual (graph), numbers (columns), and spatial (timeline)

Baseline and current dates The best-laid schemes of mice and men Often go awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, Instead of promised joy! — Robert Burns Juxtapose baseline and current dates

Baseline and current dates Juxtapose baseline and current finish dates as dates, milestones, and stoplights

Baseline and current dates Juxtapose baseline and current task bars, start/finish dates and duration

Baseline and current dates Juxtapose baseline and current costs as values, graph, and stoplights

At-a-glance stoplight reports In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. —Dwight D. Eisenhower Shapes and colors to indicate health

Highlight milestones and schedule hierarchies Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. —Henry Ford In a sea of start dates, end dates, rows of activities, and columns of data, how can the major milestones and activity rows stand out? Move major milestones to summary lines Enlarge the physical size of the milestone Use striking colors, like red Circle major milestones Use shapes which convey a sense of a major event Use a column which marks major tasks Filter to display only the major activities Shade by outline level

Multi-tiered reports from multiple source files Some people are much more... oh, ever so much more... oh, muchly much much more unlucky than you. —Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel

Multi-tiered reports from multiple source files Transform lots of project files... ...into mid-management reports... ...and one top level report of key milestones from the mid-level reports...

Multi-tiered reports from multiple source files Keep mid- and top-level reports up-to-date Filtered Source Files Mid-Level Project Presentation Schedules Top-Level Project Presentation Schedule IMPORT LINK KEY DATES REFRESH REFRESH Update with changes Update with changes

Detailed Source Schedules Mid-Level Reports of Key Source Data Top-Level Report of Key Mid-Level Data Project A Import filtered data Project B & C Import filtered data Project D Import filtered data Project E Import filtered data

Link other data to your report The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. —Albert Einstein Challenge: Fit lots of data into a single page Cost spreadsheets More detailed schedules Research reports PERT charts AutoCAD drawings Solution: Link from symbols to documents for quick access

Link other data to your report AutoCAD drawing attached to the Design end date Link other data to your report Research Report attached to the Research start date MS Project schedule with detailed Production data Financials Report attached to the status milestone

Distribute and share your presentation Web page of high-level report with drill-down

Distribute and share your presentation Open with reader (Adobe, Milestones) Paste into PowerPoint or Word Upload to a shared e-room

Is your presentation ready for prime-time? The project report is: Objective Clear and concise Easily interpreted Able to drill-down to details from the summary Able to show impact when dates or values change Separated into distinct areas of focus

Questions and Answers