UMUC IFSM 438 – IT Project Management MS Project Exercises

UMUC
IFSM 438 – IT Project Management
MS Project Exercises

Caution:?Please don’t work ahead on the MSP homework; don’t do them until
assigned in the weekly Conference.? Getting ahead is laudable, but
I don’t want people to get confused by trying to do work before we’ve covered
it in the lessons.
Important
Note:?The MSP
homework will be assigned in designated groupings.? For
instance, on a particular week, half the class (student Group A) will do
Exercise G and the other half of the class (student Group B) will do exercise
H, but nobody needs to do both exercises.? And
similarly for some of the other exercises.??These homework groupings are not related to the student ITP project
teams.? Only the ITP projects will be done in teams, which are separately
assigned.
To reiterate:?These MS Project homework assignments are NOT team assignments but
are all individual homework assignments.
Homework groupings are specified at .umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/Student-Groups-for-Homework-Assignments.htm#HomeworkGroups”>http://polaris.umuc.edu/~kschank/Student-Groups-for-Homework-Assignments.htm#HomeworkGroups

Trouble with links?
If linking to these instructions from elsewhere
in LEO fails, then remember that this consolidated compilation of all homework
assignments can be found in LEO Content > Course Content > MS Project
Exercises.
Contents
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706271″>A. ???????Predecessors and
Successors I
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706272″>B. ???????Predecessors and
Successors II
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706273″>C. ???????Dates, Linkages,
and Constraints
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706274″>D. ???????Resources and
Costs
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706275″>E. ???????Baselining and
Actuals
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706276″>F. ???????Task and
Schedule Changes
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706277″>WBS Exercises
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706278″>G. ??????WBS Exercise I
(Wedding Planning)
.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/MS-Project-Exercises.htm#_Toc367706279″>H. ??????WBS and Schedule
II
A.
Predecessors and Successors I
Please write all your response in a single MS Word document covering
all questions and exercises, and paste (do not attach) the screen shots into
the document in-line with your text.? It makes it much easier to read? — and grade.? Please include screen shots of each step, not just one screen shot
before or one after.
Note:? These are not trick questions, though (as with many of the MS
Project exercises) you need to read them carefully.? Some people
seem to misread the question and do the wrong thing.
A.1. You’ve seen in Appendix A how to enter the predecessors for a task.? What
is one method to enter successors (that’s right, successors, not predecessors)
for an MS project task?? (Note:?
This is not asking how to display the Successors column; that’s the
next question.? This asks how to enter successors for a task.)?
Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
A.2. What is one method to show the successors
field (column)?? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
A.3. What is one method to enter the project
start date?? Not the start date of a task (that’s a different question, below)
— not even of the first task — but the start date of the entire project.?
Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
A.4. What version of MS Project did you use
for this?
B.
Predecessors and Successors II
Please write all your response in a single MS Word document covering
all questions and exercises, and paste (do not attach) the screen shots into
the document in-line with your text.? It makes it much easier to read? — and grade.? Please include screen shots of each step, not just one screen shot
before or one after.
B.1.
We have asked about how to specify linkages and said
that there are several ways to do so.? So consider another way than
you mentioned, above.? Given two tasks that have already been entered, what is one way (a
different way) to specify predecessor-successor linkages between these two
tasks?? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
B.2.
What is another way to specify predecessor-successor
linkages between two tasks?? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
B.3.
What is still another way to specify
predecessor-successor linkages between two tasks?? Describe
AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
C.
Dates, Linkages, and Constraints
Please write all your response in a single MS Word document covering
all questions and exercises, and paste (do not attach) the screen shots into
the document in-line with your text.? It makes it much easier to read? — and grade.? Please include screen shots of each step, not just one screen shot
before or one after.
Note:? These are not trick questions, though (as with many of the MS
Project exercises) you need to read them carefully.? Some people
seem to misread the question and do the wrong thing.
C.1. How can we enter a hard-coded start or
stop date for a task?? Not the start date of a project (that’s a different question,
above), but the start or stop date of a given task.??Describe AND provide a screen shot
of the steps.?
IMPORTANT:?
DO NOT do this on your projects in this class.? No tasks
should have hard-coded start or stop dates in this class.?
The only date you enter should be the project start date.?
The rest should be determined by the task durations and predecessor-successor
dependencies.
C.2. How can we enter date constraints for a
task (e.g., Start-No-Earlier-Than, Finish-No-Later-Than, etc)??
(Note:? This is
specifically asking how to enter date constraints OTHER THAN the default Start-As-Soon-As-Possible.)?
Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
IMPORTANT:?
DO NOT do this on your projects in this class.? No tasks
should have date constraints in this class.? The only
constraint should be the default “Start As Early As
Possible”.? The rest should be determined by the task durations and
predecessor-successor dependencies.
C.3. How can we enter different linkage types
(Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, Start-to-Finish)?(Note:?
This is specifically asking how to enter linkage types OTHER THAN the default
Finish-to-Start type.)? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
IMPORTANT:?
DO NOT do this on your projects in this class.? No tasks
should have unusual linkage types in this class.? The only
linkage type should be the default ” Finish-to-Start
“.? The rest should be determined by the task durations and
predecessor-successor dependencies.
D.
Resources and Costs
Please write all your response in a single MS Word document covering
all questions and exercises, and paste (do not attach) the screen shots into
the document in-line with your text.? It makes it much easier to read? — and grade.? Please include screen shots of each step, not just one screen shot
before or one after.
D.1. How do we assign a labor RESOURCE (human resource) to a task in MS
Project?? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
D.2. What are labor COSTS in MS project??
How do we assign labor COSTS to a task in MS Project?? Describe
AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
D.3. What are non-labor costs in MS Project?? How do we
assign non-labor costs to a task in MS Project?? Describe
AND provide a screen shot of the steps.
D.4. There are different kinds of non-labor costs, including expendables
like supplies, one-time fixed costs, and unit rate costs (e.g., seven widgets
at $13.00 each).??What terms does MS Project use for these?? What is the
difference in how to assign these non-labor costs in MS Project?
E.
Baselining and Actuals
Please write all your response in a single MS Word document covering
all questions and exercises, and paste (do not attach) the screen shots into
the document in-line with your text.? It makes it much easier to read? — and grade.? Please include screen shots of each step, not just one screen shot
before or one after.
Note:?
These are not trick questions, though (as with many of the MS Project
exercises) you need to read them carefully.? Some people
seem to misread the question and do the wrong thing.
E.1. How do you set a project baseline
in MS Project?? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.??

E.2. How do you enter the actual
duration or effort a task took when executed?? Describe
AND provide a screen shot of the steps.??
(Important Note:?This is to
update the ACTUAL duration for a
task as executed, not the planned duration.? The planned
or scheduled duration is to remain the same.? Note also
that this refers to updating the date (or percentage complete) for an
individual task, not for the entire project.)?
E.3. How do you “status” or
recalculate a schedule , update a schedule to adjust
its dates based on actual execution durations?? (Note that
this will change the critical path, though this question does not care how to
display the critical path.)? Describe AND provide a screen shot of the steps.??

(Important Note:? This refers
to updating the data and re-calculating the dates for the entire project, not
for individual tasks of the project.? It does not refer to changing
individual dates nor to adding actual dates.??Basically, this is like clicking the Update or Refresh key in other
apps.? This is also not the same as updating all tasks to say that they
are complete as of the current date.)
E.4. How do you show both the baseline
and current bars on a Gantt chart?
F.
Task and Schedule Changes
Inspired by: Fuller, Valacich, and George
(2008). Information
Systems Project Management.? Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice-Hall.? pp.403-4-4.

Suppose you are the project manager for the following project:

Task

(Part 1)
Baseline Duration

Predecessor(s)

(Part 2)
Actual Duration

1

1 days

—

1 days

2

3 days

1

3 days

3

2 days

1

1 days

4

3 days

2

5 days

5

5 days

3

5 days

6

3 days

4, 5

3 days

7

1 days

6

1 days

F.1. “Before”:? First, prepare a network diagram
for the project using MS Project.?Determine the critical path and
slack times for all of the tasks.This completes the
plan for the project schedule.
F.2. Then figure out the project
duration and completion date.? Then baseline this (in MS Proj: Tools
> Baseline) then save the .mpp file as “ F. Baselined
Project”.
F.3. “After”:?
During project plan Proj Execution, we become aware
of the need to change the duration of Task
4 to five days.? Meanwhile, Task 3 has been
finished one day early, so it only took one day to do.
F.4. Re-do
the network diagram and figure out the new duration and completion date.?
F.5. Look at
the “tracking Gantt chart” to compare the before (baselined)
and after (actual) versions.? The baselined version will generally be
black/gray, and the actual/current version will generally be in color (red for
critical path tasks, blue for non-critical path tasks).
F.6. Save
the .mpp file, making sure it shows both versions,
before (baselined) and after (actual) in the file.?
F.7. Then, having done all this, answer these questions:
a. What effect
did this have on and total project effort?? Why?
b. What effect did
this have on project duration?? Why?
c. What effect
did this have on the critical path?? Why?
WBS Exercises
G. WBS Exercise I (Wedding Planning)
Important Note:? Doing this exercise now will greatly help you
in succeeding on the ITP projects.
Note:? Doing this exercise will require making some
assumptions.? Make sure to
show your assumptions and explain why you made them!
Note:?
At each step just continue on from where you finished the previous step.?
Don’t revert back to the beginning.
Perform all of the steps and answer all of the parts
of the question/exercise, below;? document your assumptions that you
made at every step;? note the project completion date at each step;?
and describe your findings at every step:
Step A — Take the following WBS and put it
into your Microsoft Project. Don’t forget to add the indents!?Save
the file as “ G. Wedding Project
File One”. ADD durations to all tasks based on YOUR
estimates of how long the tasks should take.
In your response to this question, tell us, based on your durations,
how long it will take to plan the wedding andtell us the datethat Microsoft
Project tells you that you will befinished with the Plan the Wedding project.
Assume a project start date of
January 1st
of this year (or the following Monday if that was on a weekend):
1. Plan a wedding
1.1
Schedule the church
1.2
Prepare for the reception ??????????????????????????????????
1.2.1 Select the hall
1.2.2 Select the caterer
1.2.3 Order the cake
1.3 Invite the guests
1.3.1 Order the
invitations
1.3.1.1 Buy stamps
1.3.1.2 Prepare the
mailing list
Make sure to use “Automatic scheduling”, not “Manual
scheduling”, and to enter task durations not hard-coded task dates.?
(“Manual scheduling” can really mess things up.?
For the reasons why, see “.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/%27Dangerous%27-MS-Project-Features-to-Avoid.htm”>’Dangerous’
MS Project Features to Avoid”.)
Please flesh it out by adding a few additional tasks of your own at
appropriate places in the WBS to make it more realistic.?
Don’t get carried away, though.? Don’t make it overly complex.? That’s not
the intent.
In MS Project, add a top level root task whose name is the project
name (Wedding Plan), with no work in itself, and all remaining tasks (the tasks
listed above and those you added) subordinate to (indented from) it.
Step B — Save the file again, as “ G. Wedding Project File Two”.
Then, in the last lowest task (that is, the lowest level leaf node
task), change the date to six months from the day you are working on the file.

Task changes like this may have to be “Manual scheduling”,
but still should involve only task duration changes, not hard-coded task dates.?
In your narrative, please indicate which task you changed (which
task was the last, lowest leaf node task), and what date you changed it to.
What happens to the other tasks? When is the Plan the Wedding
project scheduled to complete?
Step C — Save the file again, as “ G. Wedding Project File THREE”.
Then, change the date in the Prepare for the Reception task to June
15 (that is, the next June 15 after the project starts; don’t change it to a
date in the past). If the Prepare for Reception task is a summary roll-up
group, then you may need to change its date by changing the date of a
subordinate task instead.
What happens? When is the Plan the Wedding project scheduled
to complete?
Which task did you change the date of?? Why?
Step D — As you have gone through these
changes, what has happened to the tasks in the Schedule/calendar area of the
Gantt view?
Step E — NOW, save your final .mpp as “ G.
Wedding Project File FOUR” and post both your .mpp
and your narrative (these answers) in this week’s discussion Conference under
the Homework topic, for others to review, and in your Assignments Folder.?
This public posting of this exercise is optional but may earn extra points.?
Note:? Submitting
Exercise G in the Conference allows you and your classmates to compare your
approaches in doing the wedding WBS, which is part of the assignment (see Step
F, below).? Submitting only in your Assignments Folder does not allow this.
Step F — FINALLY, look at each other’s
postings. You should have some differences and you should be able to tell
us what those differences are….. What do you think causes the
differences among classmates using the same WBS? How do you think this might
affect your team efforts as you work with your team’s WBS and Microsoft Project
as we go through the semester?
If nobody has posted anything yet, then, realizing that there will
be differences between submissions, please can answer the question anyway:?
What do you think causes the differences among classmates using the same WBS?
How do you think this might affect your team efforts as you work with
your team’s WBS and Microsoft Project as we go through the semester?
H.
WBS and Schedule II
Important Note:? Doing this exercise now will greatly help you
in succeeding on the ITP projects.
Note:?
At each step just continue on from where you finished the previous step.?
Don’t revert back to the beginning.? Also, just submit this homework exercise
once at the end of the sequence (step N). You need not submit multiple
copies after each group of steps. Just once at the end.
1. Enter the following project into MS Project, with project start date of January 1st of
this year (or the following Monday if that was on a weekend):

Task Name

Duration

Successors

A

2

B, C

B

5

D, E

C

8

F

D

8

H

E

4

G

F

2

H

G

6

I

H

4

I

I

1

—

Note:? Yes, those are successors, not
predecessors.
In MS Project, add a top level root task
whose name is the project name (MSP-1), with no work in itself, and all
remaining tasks (the tasks listed above and those you added) subordinate to
(indented from) it.?
Make sure to use “Automatic
scheduling”, not “Manual scheduling”, and to enter task durations
not hard-coded task dates.? (“Manual scheduling” can really mess things up.?
For the reasons why, see “.umuc.edu/%7Ekschank/%27Dangerous%27-MS-Project-Features-to-Avoid.htm”>’Dangerous’
MS Project Features to Avoid”.)?
2. Peruse the Tracking Gantt chart view with predecessor/successor
links shown and with the critical path highlighted in red.
3. Peruse the network diagram view with the critical path highlighted
in red.
4. Save a copy of it with a file name of “
H1.mpp”.
5. What is the total work duration of the whole project??
(i.e., the sum of the durations of the tasks along the critical path.)
6. What is the critical path of this project?? (i.e., list
the tasks on the critical path of this project in order.)

7. Suppose (wonder of wonders!)
that task D actually finishes early!?
Change its duration to 6 in MS Project.? Save the
changed file with a file name of “
MSP-H2.mpp”.
Task changes like this may have to be
“Manual scheduling”, but still should involve only task duration
changes, not hard-coded task dates.
8. Did this change the work duration of the project??
If so, what is the project work duration now?
9. What is the critical path of this project now??
(i.e., list the tasks on the critical path of this project in order.)

10. Suppose
task F runs late.? Change its duration to 6 in MS Project.? Save the
changed file with a file name of “
MSP-H3.mpp”.
11. Did
this change the work duration of the project?? If so, what
is the project work duration now?
12. What is
the critical path of this project now?? (i.e., list the tasks on the
critical path of this project in order.)

13. Suppose
task G runs late.? Change its duration to 8 in MS Project.? Save the
changed file with a file name of “
H4.mpp”.
14. Did
this change the work duration of the project?? If so, what
is the project work duration now?
15. What is
the critical path of this project now?? (i.e., list the tasks on the critical
path of this project in order.)
16. What
version of MS Project did you use for this?
Exercise H Notes:?
Make sure to submit the .mpp file(s).?
The “after” version (steps 13-15) is most important for showing your
work and results.
Submit Exercise H in your Assignments Folder, not the discussion
Conference, since there is no requirement to comment on each
others’ submissions.