Specify and review the project dates   Reviewing the project dates can help you to see whether you are meeting the targeted finish date and whether you need to make any further adjustments to meet that date.

Click all of the following that apply:

• See what's driving the project finish date if you are not progressing toward your targeted finish date. Seeing the critical path (critical path: The series of tasks that must be completed on schedule for a project to finish on schedule. Each task on the critical path is a critical task.) can help you to focus on adjusting calendars (calendar: The scheduling mechanism that determines working time for resources and tasks. Project uses four types of calendars: the base calendar, project calendar, resource calendar, and task calendar.), scope (scope: The combination of all project goals and tasks, and the work required to accomplish them.), tasks (task: An activity that has a beginning and an end. Project plans are made up of tasks.), and assignments (assignment: A specific resource that is assigned to a particular task.) to make changes to the critical path tasks and therefore the finish date.
• Estimate task durations by using PERT analysis to help you to develop realistic durations for the tasks in your project plan.
• Display task scheduling information to learn how your project is being scheduled. You can see how changes to the task schedule affect the finish date of your project.

Adjust the plan to meet the finish date   You can use a variety of strategies, including adjusting the calendars, scope, tasks, and assignments, in order to meet the targeted finish date.

Click all of the following that apply:

• Specify a project start date or finish date that begins or finishes on a date that is earlier than the date of the current plan. If this is an option for your project, try changing the start date first.

•  Modify a calendar

  Click all of the following that apply:

  • Create a task calendar if the task calendars (task calendar: The base calendar that you can apply to individual tasks to control their scheduling, usually independent of the project calendar or any assigned resources' calendars. By default, all tasks use the project calendar.) that are applied to the critical path tasks are unnecessarily delaying the finish date. Modifying or removing a task calendar may have the least effect of any changes to the three types of calendars (task, resource, and project) in Microsoft Office Project 2007.
  • Modify a resource calendar if the resources (resources: The people, equipment, and material that are used to complete tasks in a project.) are actually working more than their calendar reflects. For example, if the resource calendar (resource calendar: A calendar that specifies working and nonworking time for an individual resource. A resource calendar differs from a base calendar, which specifies working and nonworking time for more than one resource.) for a resource that is assigned to critical path tasks indicates a four-day workweek, but the resource actually works five days, you will probably meet the finish date.
  • Modify the project calendar if the project is being worked on for more hours or days than your project calendar reflects. For example, if the project calendar (project calendar: The base calendar used by a project.) indicates that weekends are nonworking time (nonworking time: Hours or days designated in a resource or project calendar when Project should not schedule tasks because work is not done. Nonworking time can include lunch breaks, weekends, and holidays, for example.), but you actually are running weekend shifts, changing the project calendar will probably meet your finish date.

•  Reduce the project scope

  You might need to reduce the scope (scope: The combination of all project goals and tasks, and the work required to accomplish them.) to meet the finish date or the budget (budget: The estimated cost of a project that you establish in Project with your baseline plan.). Or, after building your project plan, you might have more time or money than expected. In either case, you can change the scope of the project. You can choose between changing the deliverables (deliverable: A tangible and measurable result, outcome, or item that must be produced to complete a project or part of a project. Typically, the project team and project stakeholders agree on project deliverables before the project begins.) of the product or changing the scope of the project.

  For example, you decide to remove a market research task from a project, and you also reduce the duration of product testing in order to meet the finish date or budget. In this case, the end product and deliverables don't change. However, you changed the method for providing this end product by reducing the scope of the project.

  Do all of the following that apply:

  • Change a duration to meet the finish date by reducing the amount of time planned for critical path tasks. Be sure that the reduced duration still reflects a minimum reality. Also be sure to adjust the corresponding amount of work that is assigned to the resources.
  • Remove a task to meet the finish date. Removing tasks can decrease the quality of the overall project implementation. Tasks that must be done should still be reflected in the plan, and only those tasks that are considered optional should be removed.
  • Replace a resource assignment to meet the finish date. You can replace a slower resource with a faster one, such as a person with more experience, equipment with higher capacity, or material with a quicker setting time.

•  Adjust a task on the critical path

  Click all of the following that apply:

  • Show the critical path to keep an eye on the critical path and meet the finish date.
  • Change when a task becomes critical if you want to change the definition of a critical task to mean, for example, a task with one or two days of slack. By default, Project 2007 considers a task to be critical if it has zero days of slack.
  • Change the start date or finish date for a task if inflexible date constraints (constraint: A restriction set on the start or finish date of a task. You can specify that a task must start on or finish no later than a particular date. Constraints can be flexible [not tied to a specific date] or inflexible [tied to a specific date].) (such as Must Start On or Must Finish On) were set on tasks. When you make task constraints in the critical path more flexible, Project 2007 can calculate the schedule with fewer restrictions, and you might be able to meet the finish date.
  • Change a duration for a task on the critical path to meet the project finish date.
  • Split a task if the single task comprises multiple elements that can be worked on simultaneously by different resources. If you break a critical path task into these different elements with different assignments, you might be able to meet the finish date.
  • Change a task link to review the relationships (or dependencies) among tasks in the critical path and to see whether there are any incorrect or unnecessary links that you can change.
  • Set overlap or delay for tasks to adjust the lead and lag time between linked tasks. Adding lead time (lead time: An overlap between tasks that have a dependency. For example, if a task can start when its predecessor is half-finished, you can specify a finish-to-start dependency with a lead time of 50 percent for its successor [has a negative lag value].) between linked tasks can help to meet the finish date. Adding lag time (lag time: A delay between tasks that have a dependency. For example, if you need a two-day delay between the finish of one task and the start of another, you can establish a finish-to-start dependency and specify a two-day lag time [has a positive value].) where necessary can make the schedule more realistic.

•  Adjust an assignment to meet the finish date

  Click all of the following that apply:

  • Assign an additional resource to decrease the duration of a task on the critical path. Assigning more resources to decrease a task duration works as long as the task is effort-driven (effort-driven scheduling: The default method of scheduling in Project; the duration of a task shortens or lengthens as resources are added or removed from a task, while the amount of effort necessary to complete a task remains unchanged.) and not fixed-duration (fixed-duration scheduling: A scheduling method in which the duration for a task remains the same regardless of the number of resources assigned to the task.).

    Adding more resources to tasks is called "crashing" or "compressing" the project. Taken to an extreme, crashing can be a risky way to complete a project because of the extra costs and inefficiencies that can result. If you add too many tasks, the length of the project can increase rather than decrease because of the extra complexity.

  • Replace a resource assignment to help meet the finish date if the resource (person, equipment, or material) can work faster or more efficiently or can be assigned more units (units: The quantity of a resource assigned to a task. The maximum units is the maximum number of units available for the resource. For example, if you have three plumbers, the maximum units is 300 percent or three plumbers working full-time.) for tasks on the critical path.
  • Adjust the time a work resource spends on a task by changing the resource's assignment units (assignment units: The percentage of a work resource's time, or units, that the resource is assigned to a task.) on a critical task or by having the resource start on the assignment at an earlier date.

Adjust the plan to take advantage of additional time  

Enter a note about schedule changes   Log information about changes that you made to meet the finish date. Such notes can be helpful when you are tracking actual progress, closing the project, or collecting data for the next project.

• Add a note to a task, resource, or project

Evaluate the results of schedule optimization   This evaluation ensures that you did indeed meet the finish date and that costs, workload, and other projects were not adversely affected by these changes.

Click all of the following that apply:

• See what's driving the project finish date to see how the changes that you made to optimize for the finish date affected the critical path. This can help you to see whether you actually achieved your goal of meeting your targeted finish date.
• Display task and project scheduling information to view the date information for your tasks and project or for projects that are published to Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.
• Review resource workloads to see whether any assigned resources are now overloaded or underutilized as a result of optimizing to meet the finish date.

Communicate the assignment changes to the resources   If you assigned new tasks to the resources (resources: The people, equipment, and material that are used to complete tasks in a project.) or changed or removed existing assignments as a result of meeting the finish date, you can communicate these changes to the affected resources, either online or by printing assignment reports (report: A format in which you can print schedule information that is appropriate for the intended recipients. You can use the predefined reports provided by Project or create custom reports.).

• Publish the latest plan and team assignments if you are using Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 to communicate the project information.
• Add a note to a task, resource, or project to log information about changes that you made to meet the finish date. Such notes can be helpful when you are tracking actual progress, closing the project, or collecting data for the next project.

 Add supporting information about a task or resource after the project information changes   Add more information in the form of notes, documents, and links to Web pages.

Click all of the following that apply:

• Add a note to a task, resource, or project to include a small amount of information directly in your project. Also, you can add a file from another program to a project note.
• View and upload documents if you want to link supporting documents by using Project Server 2007.
• Create or change inter-project dependencies and deliverables with Project Server 2007 in order to include information about your project that other projects in your organization may depend on.