Organizing a project's tasks, time and resources means organizing project information into planners, spreadsheets and scheduling programs. These tips explain how to produce Gantt-type schedules in Excel,
though the method will work on most spreadsheet software; scheduling tutorials and a free download trial version of Project KickStart, an easy-to-use scheduling program; a host of project
management extensions for MS Outlook; and links to planning templates and a discussion group for MS Project, the most popular, if not the most user-friendly, full-featured scheduling program.
- Turn an Excel spreadsheet into a Gantt chart.
Spreadsheets like Excel can be an excellent choice for organizing project information because people are so
familiar with them. Their main drawback is that spreadsheets do not have Gantt charts which offer helpful, graphic views of project timelines. This link explains how to develop a Gantt chart in Excel and a free Excel Gantt template can be downloaded here.
- View tutorials or download a trial version of Project KickStart.
These five tutorials about easy-to-use Project KickStart also provide a crash course in project
scheduling. Click here
for a fully functional 30-day trial copy of Project KickStart.
- Project management extensions and tools for MS Outlook.
 MS Outlook is designed to manage information. It
acts as a mail handler for MS Project and other projectware with automatic notifications. It also offers task management features as seen at the right, but
these are modest project management features. However, several products are available to boost Outlook's project
management capabilities, and here is a MS blog with tips and user advice for extending Outlook into realms within and beyond project management.
- Microsoft Project templates and blogs.
 Microsoft offers planning templates that can be helpful for those getting started with Microsoft
Project. Still, many find MS Project full-featured though not always easy to use. "If only I could ask a question," which can be done among the MS Project bewildered and
enlightened in this discussion group.
Managing projects means managing information which means having a repository
information. Software to support project information management is readily available and the best place to begin is with products that are familiar, like Excel
and Outlook, neither of which are particularly well known for project planning and tracking, but both of which offer options for project management, mainly through
non-Microsoft sources. What little risk there is stems from the fact that Outlook and Excel have to be enhanced to perform at project management tools.
Project KickStart and MS Project were designed to be project management tools. KickStart is easy to use and MS Project is full-featured and robust enough to
accommodate large projects. KickStart can be used as a stand-alone scheduling tool or act as a front-end pre-planner whose schedules can be downloaded into
MS Project when a project requires "heavy lifting."
Project Managers and leaders can learn more about organizing tasks, time and resources
and automate their project scheduling in the Project Scheduling Workshop.
Developers can bring a project professional with product development experience
by using Project Management Software Development Support
.
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