IN-FLIGHTING PROJECTS IN U PLANITTRAINING

A description of how to construct a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with past historical data on a project that is in-flighted to U PlanIT.

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© 2009 IT Project & Portfolio Office I The University of Utah

IN-FLIGHT PROJECTSWhen projects that are currently managed outside of U PlanIT need to be documented within U PlanIT, that is called an in-flight project. The process that assists Project Managers in creating Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) for work that has already been complete is as follows:

1. Enter Work Items2. Identify Past Milestones3. Mark ‘Yes’ on Enter Status Flag4. Enter Actual Start and Actual Finish Dates5. Enter Percent Complete6. Create Future WBS Using CPM

When completed in order, U PlanIT provides Project Managers with a project plan that is published and provides a historical timeline for past work and a timeline for future work.

1. Enter Work Items

2. Milestones

3. Status Flag

4. Actual Dates

5. Percent Complete

6. Use CPM

1. ENTER WORK ITEMSTo begin entering a project that has been previously worked on prior to entering into U PlanIT complete the following steps:

1.From the Work tab, choose the Manager secondary tab2.If needed, click on the link for the Project and select

View in Manager3.Using the Column Set drop down, change view to In-Flight

Projects this column set consists of Work Items, Milestone Flag, Enter Status Flag, Actual Start, Actual Finish, Duration at Complete, Percent Complete, Work Status and the Gantt. The column set will ensure you complete in-flight data in the correct order.

4.Enter work items in U PlanIT by going to Manager view, double-clicking the cell and typing in the item.

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1. ENTER WORK ITEMSWork items within U PlanIT are broken into the following levels:

Project Phase

Activity Task

Sub-Task

Keep in mind that the lower leafed items roll up into the parent items. For example, you may have a parent Activity with six Tasks under it.

Essentially you will have four levels to work with in decomposing your WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). This ensures that your plan will not be too detailed or too intense for the resources to report time on.

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You can enter work items in U PlanIT by going to Manager view, double-clicking the cell and typing in the item.

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1. ENTER WORK ITEMS

To enter an item at the same level click the button. For example, if you entered an Activity and needed another Activity directly below you would click on .

To see the full screen shot of where the button is located in relation with the work items, click on the

button at the top of this screen.

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1. ENTER WORK ITEMS

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To enter an item at the a lower level click the button. For example, if you entered an Activity and needed a Task directly below you would click on

It is essential that all work items are identified FIRST before moving on since you cannot insert a child item under any work items with allocations, actual hours reported against it, or a status of Complete.

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1. ENTER WORK ITEMS

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If per chance you have selected the wrong button while Inserting or Inserting Children you can always change to different levels by clicking the Out-dent and Indent buttons just to the right of the Insert and Insert Child buttons.

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1. ENTER WORK ITEMS

1. ENTER WORK ITEMSCASE STUDY

“Do I have everything as reflected from our last meeting?” you ask the project team as they review the work breakdown structure you built within U PlanIT.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Pat says, “but I think we have forgotten to have a key validation step with our Sponsor in the plan right before we execute the project.”

You look at the plan and sure enough you have forgotten to add the validation step. No worries you simply click on the Activity titled, “Finalize Plan” prior to where Validation needs to go and click on .

You click away from the work item you just added and notice that it is now a Task under “Finalize Plan”. You need it as another Activity not a Task. You select “Validation” again and click on the which moves it back to an Activity level.

“There we go. How about now?”, you inquire again, “Am I missing anything else?”

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2. IDENTIFY PAST MILESTONES A milestone is an event, a significant point in the project, usually indicating a completed deliverable or the end of a phase, Milestones have no associated duration. You need to flag your work entities as Milestones. Projects and Phases with children cannot be designated as milestones.

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2. IDENTIFY PAST MILESTONES

To enter in a Milestone complete the following:1.From the Work tab, choose the Manager secondary tab2.If needed, click on the link for the Project and select View

in Manager3.To set a Milestone, double click the Milestone Flag column for

the work item you wish to modify and select Yes to indicate the work item is a Milestone.

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2. IDENTIFY PAST MILESTONESCASE STUDY

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You have been assigned to work with a printing vendor on a new project to bring the University of Utah’s drug labels in compliance with new regulations. Based on the new law the pharmacy has until April of next year to be in compliance. The vendor contact is a Heather Gillin.

After your team has established the work items needed for completion and the duration estimates for each item, you receive an email from Heather that lists the required start and finish dates for each work item. Much of the work has already been complete.You appreciate the work the vendor has done. You begin to enter the

work items and dates within U PlanIT. You notice that many of the work items are not necessarily work items but rather milestones such as an announcement of a deliverables or decision having been completed. You utilize the Milestone Flag column within the In-Flight Past Projects (use for completed work items) Column Set and mark them as milestones.

3. MARK 'YES' ON ENTER STATUS FLAG

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When working with in-flight projects you will want to quickly document what percent complete of an item has been done. In-flighting past work items that are complete means that you need a quick and simple way to mark them as complete.

To do this you will need to mark ‘Yes’ on the Enter Status flag which enables you to mark the completed work using percentages.

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3. MARK 'YES' ON ENTER STATUS FLAGTo Mark ‘Yes’ on Enter Status flag complete the following:

1.From the Work tab, choose the Manager secondary tab2.If needed, click on the link for the Project and select View

in Manager3.To set as ‘Yes’, double click the Enter Status Flag column for

the work item you wish to modify and select Yes to indicate the work item will be statused using percent complete.

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When entering past completed work within U PlanIT it can be frustrating to mark work as complete. You have to select the specific work item, click on Work Detail, maximize the work detail screen, click on Update and check the Status Work with Percent Complete box.

3. STATUS FLAGCASE STUDY

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Thankfully, IT PPO has created the In-Flight Past Projects (use for completed work items) Column Set! Now you can simply designate that you would like to status with percent complete by selecting ‘Yes’ on the Enter Status Flag column.

4. ENTER ACTUAL START & FINISH DATES

One thing to be careful about when in-flighting past project work is to not hard code the Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish dates of the work item. This results in constraints being set unnecessarily.

Using the In-Flight Projects column set prevents you from making this mistake. Instead of entering Scheduled dates you want to enter Actual dates for project work that has previously been completed.

Double click in the Actual Start cell to select a date and then enter in the Actual Finish. By doing this you are entering in historical data that captures actual durations for past work done on the project. You will not be able to enter what the Scheduled date was compared to the Actual date.

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4. ENTER ACTUAL DATESCASE STUDY

Cassandra has been working on a project that she was now going to have to track in U PlanIT. She began to place all of her past dates within the Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish dates. This updated the Schedule Duration automatically, but Cassandra noticed two very important and troubling behaviors of the tool when she entered her dates this way.

1. U PlanIT assumed a Constraint Type every time she hard coded a date

2. Every Monday when Progression ran, her dates would change to the current Progression date

She couldn’t have her dates change! She was trying to document what has already been completed. She began to explore the tool and found that by entering her completed work dates in the Actual Start and Actual Finish column she was able to maintain her dates even after Progression and not have a Constraint Type listed.

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5. ENTER PERCENT COMPLETESince you previously selected ‘Yes’ to Enter Status Flag you are now able to enter the Percent Complete. Entering the Percent Complete will change the Work Status to Assumed Complete. The Gantt chart will also show the work item as complete by coloring the Gantt in black. This is the fastest means to complete and close out in-flight project work items.

Please note as a Project Manager you will only do this for work that has been complete. You will not want to do this for future work items. Work items that are scheduled to be done in the future will be completed via the time sheet data entered by the allocated resources.

Work items statused as complete CANNOT be reported on. Resources cannot report time to items you mark as completed in the In Flight column as such you will not be allocating resources for past work.

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5. ENTER PERCENT COMPLETECASE STUDY

Ronald was just asked to enter his project information within U PlanIT. Previously he had been tracking the project within MS Project. About 3o% of the project has been completed already.

As Ronald enters the information within U PlanIT he is upset that he has to click on the Work Detail button and click Update in order to check the box to status the work item with a percent complete. Then he would have to change the Work Status as complete all within a separate screen. Luckily, Ronald’s fellow project manager, Anne stopped by to chat and noticed that he was in-flighting past work the long and hard way.

Anne demonstrated how Ronald could enter the Percent Complete quick and easy by utilizing the In-Flight Past Projects (use for completed work items) Column Set. Now Ronald can set the Enter Status Flag and mark the Percent Complete which will automatically update the Work Status. Best of all he can now do it all on one screen.

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6. CREATE FUTURE WBS USING CPMAs previously mentioned, you will only follow the in-flight steps for work items that have been completed.

Future work items will need to be entered in U PlanIT following the Critical Path Method. For more information on how to build a Work Breakdown Structure using Critical Path Method we invite you to complete the Creating WBS using CPM online training.

Project Managers should let the running of CPM determine what the Scheduled Finish date of the project should be based on the information provided by defining, work items, durations, constraints and relationships.

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IN-FLIGHT SUMMARYFrom Manager View: FOR COMPLETED TASKS:

1. Switch Column Set to In Flight2. Enter Work Items3. Flag Milestones4. Set Status Flag to “Yes” for completed tasks5. Enter Actual Start and Finish Dates6. Enter Percent Complete7. Review Gantt

 FOR FUTURE SCHEDULED TASKS:

8. Switch Column Set BACK to Schedule Entry- Corporate (or another corporate column set)

9. Follow CPM Scheduling Training Module

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GREAT JOB!

This completes our Module on Creating a WBS using CPM. In this module you learned: How to create work items in U PlanIT How to identify past milestones in U PlanIT How to mark Enter Status Flag How to enter Actual Start & Finish Dates in U PlanIT How to enter Percent Complete which changes the

Work Status

Continue to visit www.acs.utah.edu/pp0 for more U PlanIT and Project Management online modules!

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