When you're managing a big project, there are a lot of big tasks to schedule and account for. But because a project's success relies on its overall accuracy, you don't want to forget the little things either.

Estimating the time needed for each task in your project plan can seem like a daunting task at first. When you involve your team, break the work into manageable pieces, and use the right tools to estimate the work, calculating durations is easier and more accurate than ever.

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 offers a variety of ways to enter and view estimated durations. You can even enter durations into the project schedule and use Project Professional 2003 to calculate the start and finish dates for you.

Try it out with Project Professional 2003 sample project plans. See for yourself how Project Professional 2003 can help calculate a realistic schedule for you.

The following links take you to the tools and information you need to estimate task durations for your project.

• Estimate activity duration (Article)
  Learn how a disciplined approach to task estimation can help you create a realistic project schedule.
• Goal: Estimate task durations (Article)
  Create realistic schedules in Microsoft Project Professional 2003.
• Infrastructure deployment plan (Template)
  Use this template to create an infrastructure deployment plan.
• Engineering project plan (Template)
  Use this template to create a standard engineering project schedule.
• Project management plan (Template)
  Use this template as a starting point for your new project.