Very rarely does someone use the word “Controversial” when referring to changes in a software product.  Manual Scheduling in Microsoft Project 2010 might just be one of those features falling into that unique category.

Why would something called Manual Scheduling be considered controversial?  Primarily because this feature allows you to turn off most of the scheduling engine for tasks marked as “Manually Scheduled”.  For example, I could hand-entered a duration, start and finish for a task that could conflict with calendar settings and not require a critical path.  Further, you can enter Durations and Start/Finish dates as pure text.  For example, a task that is Manually Scheduled could look like this:

At first, I cringed and thought this is going to be a nightmare trying to manage tasks like this but the more I used it the more I liked the feature.  Here’s why:

1. For small 1-3 month projects with a small team, we often get carried away with creating a perfect critical path and implement resource plans that are too granular.  This becomes a burden on new project managers so they switch to Excel or SharePoint and manage the project there.  In Project 2010, you can just set the dates for tasks, assign the resources and manage the small project in a more simplistic way.
2. For top-down planning, when you are not sure of dates and are trying to define the ultimate structure, this capability is perfect because you are trying to get alignment on dates and can use those Duration, Start and Finish dates almost as notes columns.  I kind of like using the function for this reason.
3. For large, multi-year projects we tend to know the “real” dates and commitments not more than 6-12 months out.  The rest of the activities tend to be best-guesses and subject to change.  Why not hand-enter some key dates we need to meet and then re-visit the plan every few month to add all the required detail and reset the tasks to an auto-scheduled mode?

The short video below covers the Manual Scheduling feature and talks about some of these scenarios.  Whether you like the feature or not it is best to know how it works and consider how you might use it.  This is the fourth video in a 10-part series called “Adapting to Project 2010”, which is designed for users of previous versions to get up to speed on Project’s new capabilities.

-Bill

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