Microsoft Project Professional At A Glance

Any project manager worth their salt will already know that the latest edition of Microsoft Project is an essential tool for them to carry out their duties effectively. A less clear cut issue is exactly which version, standard or professional, they should opt for.

The 2010 edition of Microsoft Project Standard contains a host of fantastic new features such as the ultra accessible user interface, user controlled scheduling and a number of operational benefits that borrow from Excel. For many professionals these new developments coupled with Project's established strengths will be more than enough to help them achieve their goals.

But what if you are a high end user or a professional with very specific, complex requirements in order to effectively carry out your corporate role? It may well be that in cases such as these Microsoft Project Professional 2010 is the correct choice.

But what are the real differences between the two packages? One of the chief benefits that Microsoft Project Professional possesses which its Standard counterpart does not is At-a-Glance Resource Management.

At-a-Glance Resource Management takes the basic effectiveness of the Gantt chart and makes it infinitely more malleable and flexible. The Team Planner view lays out all the tasks required within a particular project in a linear fashion and broken down into easily manipulated individual units.

For example, units can be allotted to certain team members giving an overall view of how much work there is to be done on the project and also how much any one individual has to do. However, business projects are constantly in a state of flux and the team planner is built to reflect the fast paced alterations that need to be made. Units can easily be dragged and dropped from one colleague to another or indeed from one time frame to another.

The layout of the team planner itself makes it much more apparent when one colleague is overloaded with work or another is twiddling their thumbs yet there is an inbuilt security mechanism in Project Professional that ensures any conflicts will be flagged up. When there is too much work focused in a particular segment of the plan a red border will appear around the unit thus alerting the project manager to the problem and allowing them to resolve it swiftly.

This feature is clearly very useful for project managers overseeing complicated and fragmented projects with a large number of different sub-tasks and team members. Without the team planner keeping track of all the constantly shifting issues and developments on any given project could become a real headache and lead to costly errors being made.

At-a-Glance Resource Management is merely one of the benefits of choosing Microsoft Project Professional 2010 over the standard version. If you are a professional who requires the advanced working options that Project Professional provides it is prudent to undertake a course in the program so that you can fully exploit the business advantages that a more comprehensive package provides. Then you will be secure in the knowledge that you made the right decision.