Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Chapter 18. Working on More Than One Project

If you’re like most project managers, you juggle several projects at the same time. You may have several smaller projects that are part of a larger effort—like the subprojects for building the different parts of a new airplane. Or you may simply manage several separate projects at once, like several fundraisers for the charity you work for. In almost every case, you have to share resources with others. For organizations with oodles of projects, Microsoft’s enterprise project-management software (Project Server and Project Web App, or Project Online) provides tools for managing entire portfolios of projects (page xvii). However, Microsoft Project Standard and Professional also have features for managing smaller numbers of projects.

In Project, a master project is the easiest way to work with several projects at the same time. You create a new Project file and then insert other Project files into it to consolidate them into one file. (Although you insert the files into a master project, they still exist as separate Project files.) A master project is great for assembling multiple subprojects in one place, but it works equally well if you’re managing a bunch of unrelated projects and want an easy way to keep an eye on all of them at once. This chapter describes how to build a master project from related subprojects and how to consolidate several unrelated projects into one Project file.

Master projects aren’t your only option when working ...