Not a problem, I’ve gone through a similar process before so it was pretty much off the top of my head. At the very least it’ll give you a basic approach to work from and fine-tune as you go along.
How easy this is to set-up is directly proportional to the preparation you do, as MS Project doesn’t handle conflict very well… by conflict I mean inconsistencies.
All the schedules (IMS and individual projects), have to be formatted the same, so it’s essential that you do the ground work to set this up correctly.
If you bear that in mind, it should be a doddle to keep on top of. Every week you just have to insert the projects into the template, link the summary milestones to the project milestones and then use the ‘Save As’ command to make sure you keep the template clean for the next round.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 months
Member for17 years4 months
Submitted by Emmanuel Valentine on Wed, 2008-07-09 10:31
Darren, you have gone and done now. THANKS, very informative and pricisely what I am looking for. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!!! I am going to take my time to fully read this when I get back from my meeting. Thanks again
Crikey, almost sent myself to sleep re-reading that post… Good Luck!!
EDIT: Forgot to mention when inserting your projects into the IMS, make sure you uncheck the ’Link to project’ checkbox in the Insert Project dialog box.
This is an easy, but labour intensive way. Its relatively straightforward to maintain, but involves a fair amount of work to set-up.
So if youre sitting comfortably...
For the 5 Project Schedules
1. Check all 5 project schedules are using the same calendar, make sure all public holidays are included.
2. Check that all the Options in the 5 project schedules are the same. The important tabs being… View, General, Edit, Calendar, Schedule and Calculation. If they aren’t, create a standard set that all the schedules will then use as their defaults.
3. If all 5 project are using different custom fields (text / numbers / flags / dates / etc.), create a standard set. Publish a list that includes custom fields available and ones that are blocked and then get the schedules owners to use / change to that set.
4. Review the schedules with the person(s) who is / are requesting the weekly status reports and get them to agree what they want reported. Ideally there will only be a few tasks in each project (e.g. ‘Start Design’ and ‘Finish Design’) that need to be highlighted in an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS).
5. Inform the schedule owners of the tasks that they will be expected to report on and get them to include a set of milestones relating to the reporting deliverables in each schedule and then link the task (SS or FS depending if the deliverable is at the start or finish of the task) to the relevant milestone.
6. Get the schedule owners to baseline their schedules and make a note of the Unique ID (Unique ID’s never change ID’s do) for each reporting milestone.
7. Agree a reporting calendar with the schedule owners. If you are giving your status report on Friday, it’s no good receiving the schedules on Thursday evening. Make sure you receive the schedules in time to collate them and generate your reports.
8. Get the schedule owners to set the status date in their schedules, so that they match that status date report and ensure they progress all of their tasks to that date. This means that they have to predict one day into the future, but if they can’t tell how their projects are progressing then something’s wrong!!
9. Set-up a common working folder that each schedule owner can save to, or you can make use of.
For the single Integrated Master Schedule
1. Create an .mpp file to use as a template for your IMS. When I say template, I don’t mean an .mpt, I just mean a file that you can use to insert the other projects into and then rename as something else.
2. Make sure the calendar options and custom fields in your ‘template’ are the same as the 5 project schedules.
3. At the top of the IMS, list the 5 projects as summary tasks and include the milestones as sub-tasks. Make sure that the text for the task / milestone names are the same in the IMS as in the original schedules. This will then become an programme overview you can use as a quick show and tell.
4. In the task information for each milestone, add a note to record the Unique ID from the original project schedule so you can always keep tabs on it (It won’t be the same Unique ID in the IMS, because it’s a different schedule).
5. Save your new .mpp template as read only (so it makes it more difficult to overwrite) in the common working folder.
6. Insert each of the original project one after the other (Insert > Project) and outdent them to the same outline level as your programme overview.
7. Link each project reporting milestone to its corresponding programme milestone.
You now have a programme schedule that you can use for you weekly status reports.
Because each schedule is baselined you can filter on the slipping late tasks / milestones and you can use the Start / Finish dates from your programme overview to produce a milestone slip chart in Excel. (there are plenty to choose from via Google).
The problems with this method are there isn’t a critical path through the programme and you don’t get a true programme picture of any resource conflicts, but like I said, it’s a simple way of doing it.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 months
Member for17 years4 months
Submitted by Emmanuel Valentine on Tue, 2008-07-08 05:04
The master/integrated plan will be updated on a weekly basis by weekly status reports from the 5 individual projects so there will be a weekly update feeds from these 5 project plans into the integrated plan.
Is there recognised standard way of doing this and are there any pit falls to watch out for when rolling these 5 different plans into one integrated plan but most importantly how to roll it into one?
EV
Member for
17 years 7 months
Member for17 years7 months
Submitted by Sreejith Nair on Sun, 2008-07-06 09:20
If that is the case, I would suggest maintaining all the activities in the same master plan , with appropriate headings.
For senior management you may Collapse bars and show only the Top level activities or WBS.
The advantage of maintaining 1 file is:
1)Easy for transmitting (Thru e-format)
2)You may collapse activities of all other projects and update one.
3)Easy to change links and do modifications on any of the projects
I cant see any disadvantages except the size or length of the programme !
Another issue will be , when you want to send the programme associated with one project to a subcontractor , whom you dont want to see the other projects/details.
Then there will be alot of deletions, which is apparently not good !
I think activity specific calenders can be used , if you plan to follow different calenders for each projects (Well, this is only a remote chance !)
Anyway ,
Member for
17 years 4 months
Member for17 years4 months
Submitted by Emmanuel Valentine on Sun, 2008-07-06 08:40
Thanks for the suggestions. The integrated plan is for a programme so all the 5 project plans are inter related and will have common/integrated points and several interdependences.
I will need to have all the activities of all the 5 project plans in the integrated/master plan.
What I am really looking for is the best way to consolidate these 5 project plans into one integrated/master plan (everything being equal) and possible issue/problem points to watch out for.
Thanks again every and will realy appreciate the suggestions to the above.
EV
Member for
17 years 7 months
Member for17 years7 months
Submitted by Sreejith Nair on Sat, 2008-07-05 01:37
You’re probably right, I’ll be forever doomed to fret about whether on not to plan using a traditional waterfall approach or move towards an Agile /SCRUM methodology. ;o)
Methodology… I hate that word but I find myself using it more and more!!
Good luck in the ME, lots of money in Defence at the moment so I don’t have to worry about it.
Depending on the size of the projects you might just get away with tracking milestones and dependencies in a programme schedule (subject to your negotiating skills of course) .
It would make life it a hell of a lot easier as you don’t have overall responsibility for the project schedules. You can then just get the PM’s to report the status of their project milestones which will then be referenced and shown at the programme level.
You then dont have to worry about whether theyve got the correct public holidays, task / resource calendars or they’re using the same default MS project options.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion many companies fall into the trap of using the programme schedule as a big, cumbersome project schedules, which still has all the details and logic that the project schedules have.
A programme schedule should be a summary of the project schedules, with governance and business-as-usual activities thrown in for good measure. The only reason you would want an integrated schedule for a programme, is if you need to show a critical path through the projects.
Just a thought.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 months
Member for17 years4 months
Submitted by Emmanuel Valentine on Fri, 2008-07-04 06:45
I am only responsible for the integrated plan, all the other 5 plans are owned by 5 different project officers/managers. So the idea is for me to compile/consolidate/integrate all these 5 different plans into one master/integrated plans.
I have worked with integrated plans before but never created one or worked with one in a programme settings before and I was wondering if there is an ideal way to do this?
E.
Member for
24 years 2 months
Member for24 years2 months
Submitted by Mal Leadbetter on Fri, 2008-07-04 05:30
I would consider how many activities you think may be in each programme before deciding whether to have 1 or 5 plans.
My personal experience is that if each of the 5 plans has over 100 lines in, then I would consider 5 seperate plans integrated into a master plan. Main thing to remember in this case is that if you have inter project links then you need to keep the files in the same computer/server directory for the links to work.
Thats my opinion for what its worth. I am sure many others have had experience of large MSP plans and can share their experiences / nightmares!
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Emmanuel,
Not a problem, I’ve gone through a similar process before so it was pretty much off the top of my head. At the very least it’ll give you a basic approach to work from and fine-tune as you go along.
How easy this is to set-up is directly proportional to the preparation you do, as MS Project doesn’t handle conflict very well… by conflict I mean inconsistencies.
All the schedules (IMS and individual projects), have to be formatted the same, so it’s essential that you do the ground work to set this up correctly.
If you bear that in mind, it should be a doddle to keep on top of. Every week you just have to insert the projects into the template, link the summary milestones to the project milestones and then use the ‘Save As’ command to make sure you keep the template clean for the next round.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Whoa!
Darren, you have gone and done now. THANKS, very informative and pricisely what I am looking for. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!!! I am going to take my time to fully read this when I get back from my meeting. Thanks again
And thanks to everyone that was helpful.
EV
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Crikey, almost sent myself to sleep re-reading that post… Good Luck!!
EDIT: Forgot to mention when inserting your projects into the IMS, make sure you uncheck the ’Link to project’ checkbox in the Insert Project dialog box.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Emmanuel,
This is an easy, but labour intensive way. Its relatively straightforward to maintain, but involves a fair amount of work to set-up.
So if youre sitting comfortably...
For the 5 Project Schedules
1. Check all 5 project schedules are using the same calendar, make sure all public holidays are included.
2. Check that all the Options in the 5 project schedules are the same. The important tabs being… View, General, Edit, Calendar, Schedule and Calculation. If they aren’t, create a standard set that all the schedules will then use as their defaults.
3. If all 5 project are using different custom fields (text / numbers / flags / dates / etc.), create a standard set. Publish a list that includes custom fields available and ones that are blocked and then get the schedules owners to use / change to that set.
4. Review the schedules with the person(s) who is / are requesting the weekly status reports and get them to agree what they want reported. Ideally there will only be a few tasks in each project (e.g. ‘Start Design’ and ‘Finish Design’) that need to be highlighted in an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS).
5. Inform the schedule owners of the tasks that they will be expected to report on and get them to include a set of milestones relating to the reporting deliverables in each schedule and then link the task (SS or FS depending if the deliverable is at the start or finish of the task) to the relevant milestone.
6. Get the schedule owners to baseline their schedules and make a note of the Unique ID (Unique ID’s never change ID’s do) for each reporting milestone.
7. Agree a reporting calendar with the schedule owners. If you are giving your status report on Friday, it’s no good receiving the schedules on Thursday evening. Make sure you receive the schedules in time to collate them and generate your reports.
8. Get the schedule owners to set the status date in their schedules, so that they match that status date report and ensure they progress all of their tasks to that date. This means that they have to predict one day into the future, but if they can’t tell how their projects are progressing then something’s wrong!!
9. Set-up a common working folder that each schedule owner can save to, or you can make use of.
For the single Integrated Master Schedule
1. Create an .mpp file to use as a template for your IMS. When I say template, I don’t mean an .mpt, I just mean a file that you can use to insert the other projects into and then rename as something else.
2. Make sure the calendar options and custom fields in your ‘template’ are the same as the 5 project schedules.
3. At the top of the IMS, list the 5 projects as summary tasks and include the milestones as sub-tasks. Make sure that the text for the task / milestone names are the same in the IMS as in the original schedules. This will then become an programme overview you can use as a quick show and tell.
4. In the task information for each milestone, add a note to record the Unique ID from the original project schedule so you can always keep tabs on it (It won’t be the same Unique ID in the IMS, because it’s a different schedule).
5. Save your new .mpp template as read only (so it makes it more difficult to overwrite) in the common working folder.
6. Insert each of the original project one after the other (Insert > Project) and outdent them to the same outline level as your programme overview.
7. Link each project reporting milestone to its corresponding programme milestone.
You now have a programme schedule that you can use for you weekly status reports.
Because each schedule is baselined you can filter on the slipping late tasks / milestones and you can use the Start / Finish dates from your programme overview to produce a milestone slip chart in Excel. (there are plenty to choose from via Google).
The problems with this method are there isn’t a critical path through the programme and you don’t get a true programme picture of any resource conflicts, but like I said, it’s a simple way of doing it.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Thanks for the info.
The master/integrated plan will be updated on a weekly basis by weekly status reports from the 5 individual projects so there will be a weekly update feeds from these 5 project plans into the integrated plan.
Is there recognised standard way of doing this and are there any pit falls to watch out for when rolling these 5 different plans into one integrated plan but most importantly how to roll it into one?
EV
Member for
17 years 7 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Hi!
If that is the case, I would suggest maintaining all the activities in the same master plan , with appropriate headings.
For senior management you may Collapse bars and show only the Top level activities or WBS.
The advantage of maintaining 1 file is:
1)Easy for transmitting (Thru e-format)
2)You may collapse activities of all other projects and update one.
3)Easy to change links and do modifications on any of the projects
I cant see any disadvantages except the size or length of the programme !
Another issue will be , when you want to send the programme associated with one project to a subcontractor , whom you dont want to see the other projects/details.
Then there will be alot of deletions, which is apparently not good !
I think activity specific calenders can be used , if you plan to follow different calenders for each projects (Well, this is only a remote chance !)
Anyway ,
Member for
17 years 4 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Hi
Thanks for the suggestions. The integrated plan is for a programme so all the 5 project plans are inter related and will have common/integrated points and several interdependences.
I will need to have all the activities of all the 5 project plans in the integrated/master plan.
What I am really looking for is the best way to consolidate these 5 project plans into one integrated/master plan (everything being equal) and possible issue/problem points to watch out for.
Thanks again every and will realy appreciate the suggestions to the above.
EV
Member for
17 years 7 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Hi!
I would suggest separate plan for each project.
You may link them to a master plan , if any of these projects are inter related.
If these projects are totally independent , I know what management is looking for.
They want to have an overall view of all these projects.
It will be total shit , if show them all the 1000 activities in all the projects.
So I would suggest , making detailed plan for each projects and a master plan with 3-4 lines each for each projects , showing major elements only.
You may update the master plan once in a while by taking data from summary tasks of each projects.
So here you have a Top-down project plan -> a master plan which is short & crisp and detailed plans for individual project.
And Brad , I know the tax and COL at your part of world is just horrendous .. that is why I can see more and more UK-ites here every day !
Welcome to middle east! Cheers !
Sreejith
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Brad,
You’re probably right, I’ll be forever doomed to fret about whether on not to plan using a traditional waterfall approach or move towards an Agile /SCRUM methodology. ;o)
Methodology… I hate that word but I find myself using it more and more!!
Good luck in the ME, lots of money in Defence at the moment so I don’t have to worry about it.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Brad
Nah, this one’s from experience.
Why spend half your working week trying to adjust an IMS so it fits when you don’t need to? Especially when it’s in MS Project!!
You shouldn’t need to show detail at a programme level, it’s all down to managing expectations... THAT was in the course though ;o)
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 9 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Hi Emmanuel,
Do you even need an integrated plan at all?
Depending on the size of the projects you might just get away with tracking milestones and dependencies in a programme schedule (subject to your negotiating skills of course) .
It would make life it a hell of a lot easier as you don’t have overall responsibility for the project schedules. You can then just get the PM’s to report the status of their project milestones which will then be referenced and shown at the programme level.
You then dont have to worry about whether theyve got the correct public holidays, task / resource calendars or they’re using the same default MS project options.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion many companies fall into the trap of using the programme schedule as a big, cumbersome project schedules, which still has all the details and logic that the project schedules have.
A programme schedule should be a summary of the project schedules, with governance and business-as-usual activities thrown in for good measure. The only reason you would want an integrated schedule for a programme, is if you need to show a critical path through the projects.
Just a thought.
Regards,
Darren
Member for
17 years 4 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
Hi
Thanks for the responses.
I am only responsible for the integrated plan, all the other 5 plans are owned by 5 different project officers/managers. So the idea is for me to compile/consolidate/integrate all these 5 different plans into one master/integrated plans.
I have worked with integrated plans before but never created one or worked with one in a programme settings before and I was wondering if there is an ideal way to do this?
E.
Member for
24 years 2 monthsRE: Integrated Plan
I would consider how many activities you think may be in each programme before deciding whether to have 1 or 5 plans.
My personal experience is that if each of the 5 plans has over 100 lines in, then I would consider 5 seperate plans integrated into a master plan. Main thing to remember in this case is that if you have inter project links then you need to keep the files in the same computer/server directory for the links to work.
Thats my opinion for what its worth. I am sure many others have had experience of large MSP plans and can share their experiences / nightmares!