Now that you’ve created the foundation for your new project plan, with the project start date and the project calendar, you’re ready to get down to the real business of entering tasks.
Note
If you’re working with a template or a copy of an existing project plan, you already have tasks in place. In this case, you can skip this section.
When entering tasks and filling in the Gantt Chart, you are essentially entering the elements and the hierarchy reflected in your work breakdown structure (WBS). You can take several approaches to develop your WBS. The following are some examples:
Brainstorming. Enter tasks as you think of them, without regard to sequence or grouping of related tasks. You can move and organize the tasks later.
Sequential. Think through the project from beginning to end, and enter tasks sequentially.
Phases. Think of the overall phases of the project. For example, in a commercial construction project, you might enter the phases of Procurement, On-Site Mobilization, Site Grading, Foundations, Steel Erection, and so on. After those phases are in place, you can add tasks and subtasks beneath them.
Milestones and deliverables. Consider what the project is producing in terms of the milestones and deliverables. Enter those events as tasks and then add tasks and subtasks beneath them to flesh out the project. Your scope statement can be a valuable guide in this process.
Team collaboration. Ask team members to list the tasks they believe will be necessary for the areas under their responsibility. This assumes, of course, that you already have team members in place and available. Team members can submit tasks and estimated durations in several ways. They can use a simple e-mail message or a document. They can use a Microsoft Outlook task list, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or a Microsoft SharePoint task list. If you’re using Project Server, team members can send you tasks from Project Web App, and then you can incorporate them automatically into your project plan.
Note
For more information about these collaboration methods, see Importing Tasks from an Excel Worksheet; Chapter 20 and Chapter 21. For information about creating new tasks through automated team collaboration, see Assigning Tasks to Enterprise Resources.
Archived projects. Review completed projects of a similar type in your organization. With such historical information, you might find that much of the legwork—in terms of phases, task sequencing, resource assignments, and more—has been done for you. If the archived projects contain solid tracking information, you’ll have excellent data on durations and costs.
Note
For more information about using an old project as a starting point for a new one, see Starting a New Project from a Template. For more information about saving a completed project for future reference, see Closing a Project.
Expert consultation. Ask known experts what tasks are needed for various aspects of the project. This is particularly useful if you’re the manager of a project in which you’re not necessarily an expert. This happens frequently enough, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you need dependable experts to help provide reliable task information. Even if you’re well versed in the project knowledge area, you might not know all the nitty-gritty details for each phase. Experts can come from within your own group, from stakeholders, from other groups or project managers within your organization, or from colleagues in your profession or industry.
To enter tasks directly into your project plan, follow these steps:
Make sure you’re working in the Gantt Chart.
You can see the name of the current view in the Active View bar that runs vertically along the left edge of the view. If it isn’t labeled Gantt Chart, on the View tab, in the Task Views group, click Gantt Chart.
Note
You can enter tasks in any task view, of course. For more information about views, see Chapter 4.
Type the name of the task in the Task Name field.
Press Enter or the Down Arrow key to move to the next row.
The task name isn’t recorded, and other commands remain unavailable, until you press Enter.
To edit a task that’s already entered, click the task name, and then click it again until the cursor appears in the cell. Be sure to make the two clicks slowly so that they are not interpreted as a double-click, in which case a dialog box appears. Edit the task name.
By default, new tasks are manually scheduled. Tasks can easily be changed to be automatically scheduled, and the default scheduling method can be changed as well.
Many project managers find that they can more quickly build an accurate task list for their project plan by having others on the team develop a task list for their specific areas of responsibility. Even if a team isn’t in place yet, you can still ask the advice of those with the necessary expertise. If these individuals are not Microsoft Project users, a great way to automate this process is to have them use Excel to create their task lists. You can then import the worksheets into the Project 2010 Gantt Chart.
The easiest way to import tasks from Excel into Project is to use the Project Task List Import Template. This Excel template contains columns that are mapped to specific Project 2010 fields to ensure that the right information ends up in the right places in your Gantt Chart task table.
What Happened to the Entry Bar?
In previous versions of Microsoft Project, an entry bar was shown by default. In Project 2010, if you want to use the entry bar, follow these steps:
On the File tab, click Options, and then in the left pane, click Display.
Under Show These Elements, select the Entry Bar check box.
Click OK.
The entry bar appears between the bottom of the ribbon and the top of the view in all views throughout the project and in any other project files you open.
Use the entry bar to enter or edit tasks. When you type in the entry bar, the cancel and enter buttons appear.
You can cancel an entry by pressing Esc on the keyboard and enter changes by pressing the Enter key.
To use the Project Task List Import Template, Excel and Project 2010 must be installed on the same computer.
Follow these steps to find the Project Task List Import Template in Excel and enter tasks:
Start Microsoft Excel 2010. On the File tab, click New.
Near the top of the Available Templates Backstage view, click Sample Templates.
Click the Microsoft Project Task List Import Template.
The template appears, showing information about the template.
Read the template information, and then click the Task_Table tab at the lower-left corner of the worksheet. The template appears with columns similar to standard Project 2010 fields, as shown in Figure 3-17.
Save this file and provide it to your team members to use to enter tasks and other task information. Have them save the information and send the electronic file to you when they finish.
You can also provide the template to others on your team who might not have Project 2010 installed on their computers. The template is typically located on your computer in the C:UsersusernameAppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates folder and is named Tasklist.xlt. You can copy and e-mail this file to your team members. They should save this file to the same Templates folder on their computers. It will then appear in the Sample Templates list on the Available Templates Backstage view.
When you’re ready to import the task list into your project plan, follow these steps:
Open the project plan in which you want to import the Excel task list.
On the File tab, click New.
In the Available Templates Backstage view, under New From Existing, click New From Excel Workbook.
Use the Open dialog box that appears to browse to the location on your computer or network where the task list from Excel is saved.
By default, Excel Workbooks (*.xlsx) are listed. If the task list was created using Excel 2003 or an earlier version, change the file type being searched. To the right of the File Name box, click the arrow on the button labeled Excel Workbook (*.xlsx), then click Excel 97-2003 (*.xls) in the drop-down menu.
The task list appears in the list of folders and files.
Click the task list workbook, and then click Open.
The Import Wizard appears.
Click Next.
Click Project Excel Template, and then click Next.
Specify whether you want to import the file as a new project, append the tasks to the currently active project, or merge the data into the active project.
Click Finish.
The tasks are imported into Project 2010 as you specified.
Note
For more information about using Project 2010 with other applications, see Importing and Exporting Information and Chapter 18.
You might have certain project tasks that need to be scheduled at regularly occurring intervals. For example, your project team might meet every Thursday morning, or perhaps you gather information and generate a resource management report the first Monday of each month. Instead of entering the same task every week or every month throughout the span of the project, you can create a recurring task. To do this, follow these steps:
Make sure you’re working in the Gantt Chart.
If necessary, on the View tab, in the Task Views group, click Gantt Chart.
In the Task Name field, click in the row above which you want the recurring task to appear.
On the Task tab, in the Insert group, click the arrow under Task, and then click Recurring Task.
In the Recurring Task dialog box, type the name of the recurring task in the Task Name field; for example, Generate resource management report. (See Figure 3-18.)
Under Recurrence Pattern, specify how often the task is to be scheduled; for example, daily, weekly, or monthly.
Specify the details of when the task is to take place during that frequency; for example, every other Thursday or the first Monday of every month.
Under Range Of Recurrence, specify when the recurring task is to start and end.
By default, the End By option is selected, with today’s date in the box. If you leave this default, no recurring tasks are created. Be sure to enter an end by date or change the option to End After and enter a number of occurrences.
If this recurring task is to be scheduled according to a base calendar that’s different from the project calendar, in the Calendar box, select the name of the base calendar to be used.
When you have finished, click OK.
The recurring task is marked with a Recurring Task indicator. It’s formatted as a summary task with all occurrences of the task as subtasks. (Information about summary tasks and subtasks can be found in Organizing Tasks into an Outline.)
