Microsoft Office Project?

[Wojtek]

Anyone using that thing? I just found out about it's existence heh

Is it useful for the average joe wanting to do some something?
Or it's mostly suited towards big big companies wanting to plan the launch of a new product for example.

[Conscript]

I would say the latter. If you are just trying to organize yourself you could use some project management techniques for doing so but you don't need full blown software.

A to-do list written in Word, costs & money tracking in excel on a small spreadsheet, using excel to calculate completion times etc, should do the job.

If you are trying to learn about formal project management then Microsoft Project will be useful as it basically adheres to "textbook project management" (basically it provides all the tools you need to make fancy reports, charts, diagrams, assign tasks, check to see what tasks are on-schedule and off-schedule).

Of course to get any utility from that you have to know formal project management theory so you actually know what to input into the program (determining the critical path, work breakdown structures, time estimates, cost estimates, assignments, etc.) so you get somewhat useful output (a chart that shows you which tasks you need to focus on or you will risk pushing the deadline back, a list of tasks you can safley ignore for a while without having an adverse effect on the project due date, a pretty diagram that shows you the order in which things are done, work packages so each person assigned knows what to do and how to do it, etc).

As I've said, for personal projects or small projects with one, two, even maybe three people, you are better off manually planning it or using whatever project management techniques you feel are appropriate and helpful to keep organized.

Project Management is a good thing to learn though as its a useful skill in any business and if you ever plan to run a bigger business (perhaps even your own) or put together larger projects it will be essential you are a good project manager. That is why I pursued the CompTIA Project+ certification (http://certification.comptia.org/project/default.aspx). You might want to get Project Management for Dummies and Teach Yourself Project Management in 24 hours as guides (those are the main two I used, though of course I also studied the topic as part of my business degree so I was kind of ahead of the curve).

If you want some more advice or assistance in this area I'll be more than happy to help.

[Wojtek]

Thanks for the info Greg.

I've got some simple, but time-consuming, project going on now and I was wondering if there'd be any benefits in using that Project software vs my current Word/Excel combo.

Since I'm alone working on it and don't need to generate pretty charts and diagrams, I think I can safely assume MS Project is not for me. For the time being.

Though some project management skills would be good to have. I'll take a look at those two books you mentioned above.

[Conscript]

Yeah, project mangement is good to know but I recommend you stick to what you do now for your current project.

You could always add daily or weekly checklists of objectives you need to complete to keep yourself accountable. The objectives must be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Releastic, and Time-Based.

If you google the SMART concept you will be able to find plenty about it.

But yeah, I would start by reading Project Management for Dummies and working your way up. It will make it seem easier than if you start with a hardcore book.

[Decker]

It's a nice app Woj, stick to the basic functions and it can help. Look up things like 'prince 2 project management' if you want to use it a bit more - it can be really good for timelines for things to be done in its simplest form.