Notes - Format your Notes

Format Who & When: Make your notes visually stand-out

Beautify Who & When

This is an optional item that you could do to make two pieces of info in your notes tab (see Record Date & Source) visually stand-out. Format the who & when pieces of info so it doesn't feel like you're reading a wall of text. It barely takes a second to switch formatting in the notes tab.

• [CTRL] + B --- toggles bold formatting
• [CTRL] + U --- toggles underlining

Admittedly, the value-add for formatting the notes is small. It's a nice-to-have visual aid that improves readability (as you can see from the screenshot above).

Notes - Record Date & Source

Who & When: All your notes should specify who said what and when they said it

Who, what and when?

Some PjMs (Project Managers) do a good job recording what was said but not who or when that comment was made. This creates the problem of figuring out how long a task has been open or if notes are too cryptic, who we can contact to understand the task.

As you can see from the above screenshot, I always include three pieces of info in the notes tab of MS Project:

• What was the comment made about the task?
• Who was the source of the info?
• When did he make the info?

Keeping the notes tab well-documented is actually not time-consuming at all. It takes me less than 30 minutes a day per project to ensure all active tasks are updated (see Update Daily).

Another benefit of this tab is that it proves extremely valuable whenever projects are transitioned to different PjMs. There's been times when I've handed my project over to a new PjM. And while I dial into the status call to support the new PjM, because of the notes tab, the new PjM is able to conduct the weekly call without any help from me. The notes tab provides a rich source of high-level info for PjMs to get up to speed on a task very quickly.

On the other hand, when I take over projects, I have to hold multiple knowledge-transfer sessions with the team to get context on the hundreds of line items in a schedule.

Notes - Update Daily

Update notes daily: Updating the notes tab in your project schedule is a MUST to stay on top of your project

An update a day ...

I normally spend at least 30 minutes a day updating the notes tab for active tasks. I don't wait for the weekly status call to make updates. Rather, as emails or conversations occur around active tasks (tasks with light-bulbs), I copy and paste snippets of notes into the notes tab.

I've found this very useful in getting a much deeper understanding of a task. Think about it: info will obviously be easier to remember if you're actively connecting emails and conversations back to specific tasks in a schedule AND you're pasting that info into the task notes section.

I've had directors challenge me on why a task has slipped or why the task is important and within less than 30 seconds, I'm able to skim through the notes tab for the task and give him a good answer. I've even been able to use the notes section to remind task owners what they had committed to weeks or even months earlier.

In fact, I make it a point to ensure that I only move emails out of my Outlook inbox into a a project folder only after I've copied a snippet of that email and pasted it into the notes tab for that task in MS Project. Obviously there are some emails that delve too deeply, technically, into an issue. So I don't copy info from those emails into the notes tab.


Bottom line: This 30 minute daily task for each project schedule helps ensure your schedule is always up to date. And your schedule will thus be a very convenient source of info for creating meeting minutes, weekly reports, etc.

Notes - Record Notes for Tasks

Memory like an elephant: Project Managers don't need the memory of an elephant to remember the details of each task in a schedule

PjMs are Information Managers

Most PjMs (Project Managers), of which I am one, have to juggle four to six projects a week. And each project may have several hundred line items in the schedule. And on weekly calls with stakeholders, we're expected to remember the details of each line item for literally hundreds of line items per project.

Many PjMs manage this info by recording notes in weekly meeting minutes (docs or emails) that they then send out. I personally dislike this approach since now you're increased the places where info is stored. For a 30-week project for example, you now have project info scattered between the project schedule and 30 emails. And then, on status calls, PjMs bring up the previous week's meeting minutes to identify what happened to a particular task. Or they leverage the knowledge of a task owner who is on the call to remind everyone what happened with that task and identify next steps.

And once they're done creating the meeting minutes, they may switch to the project schedule and cover the necessary line items pertinent to the call. And this does a dis-service to the schedule since new tasks were identified in the meeting minutes that were not added to the schedule. Or dates and deadlines have changed which have to be updated by the PjM after the call (wasting his limited time). And what's worse, stakeholders don't always see the connection between topics discussed on the call and the relevance to the schedule. Remember, people on the call are multi-tasking (or surfing the web) and so won't be actively trying to connect the dots.

One of the tasks of a PjM is information management. And a good PjM should be able to manage all this info to make it more palatable.

Put all info in your schedule

The way I manage all this information is to use the Notes tab for the task in MS Project. During my status call, the primary document that everyone sees is my MS Project schedule. We review all active & late tasks (see Show Active Tasks & Keep Tasks Green) by checking the notes tab for those tasks.

1. Access the notes tab by double-clicking on a task > Notes
2. Record notes from a status call live as team-members provide status
3. Click OK to save notes
4. The notes icon appears in the information column to indicate there's more detailed info about that task

I record notes for a task during my status calls live so my team sees what I understood as well who made those comments. This way, my team will correct me if I've misunderstood the conversation around the task. But I don't just wait for weekly status calls to make updates to the schedule. I also paste email snippets into the notes tab on a daily basis.

I've found pasting email snippets to be extremely helpful in connecting the ton of emails I get to the project schedule. In fact, when I find emails discussing a task that's not recorded in my schedule, I create a new task as a result of that email.

Bottom line: You should be able to connect all conversations, status calls, emails, etc the project schedule by pasting a snippet of that discussion in the schedule. If not, you're missing a task in your schedule.