Microsoft® Project 2007 Bible

Chapter 15. Coordinating Multiple Projects Outside Project Server

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Consolidating projects

• Understanding consolidated projects and dependencies

• Viewing multiple projects

• Using multiple critical paths

• Sharing resources among projects

Large projects are the most difficult to manage. Organization is a cornerstone to good project management, and in a large project, the sheer number of tasks makes the job more difficult than usual. In Microsoft Project, you can use the concept of consolidated projects to break projects into smaller, "bite-sized" pieces and then combine the smaller projects to view the bigger picture.

Consolidating Projects

When you're faced with a complex problem, finding the solution typically becomes easier if you can simplify the problem. Similarly, when you need to manage a complex project with many tasks, you may find it easier to organize the process if you deal with a limited number of tasks at one time.

Microsoft Project makes it easy for you to take this approach to planning large, complex projects. By using Project's consolidation features, you can create subprojects, which you can think of as the tasks that constitute one portion of your large project. When you create a subproject, you save it as a separate project file. You can assign resources and set up each subproject with links and constraints —-just as if it were the entire project. When you need to view the bigger picture, you can consolidate the subprojects into one large project. When you consolidate, ...