Project Learning Newsletter

 

www.projectlearning.net

Volume 3, No.8

 

Dear Andy,

Welcome to the eighth Project Learning newsletter of 2005.  Project Learning Limited is coming to the end of its eleventh successful year, full of ideas and innovations for year twelve.  In the next newsletter, we'll be letting you know what we have in store, and we'll also be asking you for your invaluable feedback.

A great way for us to finish off year eleven is to receive critical acclaim for our Project Mentor system from two distinct and important sources.  The first of these is a highly-complimentary review in the influential journal Project Manager Today.  Fiona Powell, a respected Microsoft Project trainer and consultant awards "Five big gold stars" to Project Mentor.  You can read the review for yourself by following the links below.  The second area of acclaim is illustrated in a case study explaining how United Airlines Cargo has gained measurable benefits from its use of Project Mentor as part of a project management excellence program.

With this month's tips and tricks, we're again taking time to explore tracking and replanning within Microsoft Project.  Under the spotlight this time are ways to see if your project is on schedule or not.  Don't forget to review the two AVI movies on the website that explain these techniques in more detail.

Sincerely,

Andy Jessop
CEO and Founder

In this newsletter:

Five big gold stars for Project Mentor

If you subscribe to Project Manager Today magazine, you'll find that the November 2005 edition carries an in-depth review of our Project Mentor CBT tool.  Reviewed by an experienced project manager and Microsoft Project trainer, Fiona Powell had this key comment to make:

"It’s the best computer-based learning package I’ve ever used. Anyone who wants to learn to use Microsoft Project for managing projects in the real world should have a compulsory licence to use it."

To find out more what Fiona had to say, you can read the review for yourself by going to our website.  Just go to:

http://www.projectlearning.net/project_mentor_reviews.htm - the general reviews page.

http://www.projectlearning.net/pdf/Project_Manager_Today_Nov05.pdf to view the pdf document.

Tips and Tricks

Planning a project is one thing; managing a project effectively is often something completely different, and with its own set of challenges.  Of the Microsoft Project users that track actual progress against project tasks, disappointingly few understand how to compare a planned schedule with what actually happened. These users are probably unaware of the wealth of information available to them, and the value they can get from correctly interpreting that information.

If you click on the link below, these tips and tricks illustrate a number of ways that schedule comparisons can be made, together with how the information available can be interpreted.

http://www.projectlearning.net/newsletters_tipstricks.htm

Project Mentor Case Study

With just over 40 Project Mentor users, United Airlines Cargo have Project Mentor as in integral part of a project management excellence program. Their key requirements of Project Mentor were:

  • To train self-taught project managers how to use Microsoft Project more effectively; improving their project management discipline in the process.
  • To assess and test Microsoft Project competency to allow progression towards Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
  • To have a training solution that was cost effective, easy to deploy and didn't require many hours of expensive classroom tuition.

To find out more about their requirement, and how it was fulfilled, take a look at:

http://www.projectlearning.net/project_mentor_feedback.htm#United_Airlines

http://www.projectlearning.net/pdf/Case_Study_United_Cargo.pdf

October prize draw winners

The five winners of the October draw of new newsletter subscribers are:
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Each of them will receive a $10 / £10 Amazon voucher with the compliments of Project Learning Limited.

If there is anything you would like us to cover or include in future newsletters, please complete this simple form.  While we can't promise anything, we'll certainly take a look at your suggestions.

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