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.

How do I display open tasks?

Shortcuts are faster: Only display active tasks in your project schedule by filtering for incomplete tasks

Philosophy
One of my pet peeves is, during weekly Webex status calls, a Program/Project Manager (PM) displays his project schedule and he continues to display all the closed or completed tasks i.e., tasks that are 100% complete. While this may not sound significant, remember that one of the tasks of a PM is information management. And information management is the art of delivering (or displaying) only the key information that stakeholders need to see. I certainly don't like having to visually wade through tasks that are no longer relevant to the project. PMs should only display open or incomplete tasks (i.e., tasks that are less than 100% complete).

Or if you need the research of why less info is more to be convinced of the benefits of keeping things simple (kinda like Apple products), check out this book "Made to Stick." This books explains beautifully why some ideas stick to people's minds and others do not. One of the six core elements of making ideas (or in our case, schedule info) sticky, is to keep it simple. Yes, KISS!

Steps

The screenshot above shows how MS Project makes it really easy to display only open (incomplete) tasks. There are two ways:

1. Point & click: Project > Filtered for: Incomplete Tasks > Incomplete Tasks
2. Shortcuts: [ALT] + P + F + N

How I display open tasks 
My favorite way, because it's the quickest, is to use the shortcuts. When I'm walking through the schedule with my project team, I typically have the tasks already filtered to display only open tasks. But every now and then, I've had to display all tasks (open & closed). Because I've practiced it so much, my fingers automatically hit [ALT] + P + F + A (to display all tasks). And once I'm done showing my team the closed task they had asked about, I automatically hit [ALT] + P + F + N (to filter on only open tasks).

Or when I've closed out a task by marking it at 100% complete, my fingers automatically hit the shortcut to hide the closed task. A closed task should be hidden the moment it's been marked as closed. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Try practicing both these shortcuts for a few days to make it come automatically to your fingers.

How do I automatically show active tasks?

Active tasks: Use light-bulb icons to indicate which tasks have started

In my weekly project calls with stakeholders, I use light bulb icons to identify which tasks to discuss, update with status info, etc. 

Because my project schedules typically have a few hundred line items, I really don't want to be reading each line in the schedule to see which task is active. Believe it or not, other project managers actually read start dates for each task (out of hundreds of tasks) to see which tasks to ask for status or discuss!

My philosophy is simple: look but don't read. So I stuck in a simple formula for MS Project to use to automatically display light bulb icons for active tasks (start date >= today's date).

Time needed: <3 min

1. Insert a column (preferably to the left of the "Task Name" colum)
   • e.g., right-click on Task Name column > Insert Column > Field name: Text 1
   • Title: Start
   • Align data: Center
   • Ok
2.  Add a formula to determine whether a task will finish on time, finish semi-late or finish really late
   • e.g., Right-click on "Start" column > Customize fields > Highlight Text1
   • Select formula > Ok > Formula
   • Paste this formula in box: IIf([% Complete]<>100,IIf([Current Date]>[Start]-1,1,0))
   • Ok
3. Add graphical indicators to the formula
   • Click on Graphical Indicators button
   • Indicator criteria for: Nonsummary rows
   • Test for "Finish on Time?"
     • equals    1.00   [Select image of lighted light bulb]
   • Ok > Ok

Automatically Color-code Milestones

Fig 1: MS Project will automatically format tasks such as milestones if the text style is defined

Philosophy of color-coding milestones

My basic philosophy with the schedule is to keep it simple: look but don't read. Which means that the 5-7 milestones (see blog post on Too Many Milestones) should visually stand out. I shouldn't have to look for 0-day duration tasks to identify when I'm looking at a milestone.

MS Project provides a nifty way of automatically formatting tasks (milestones, critical tasks, etc).

Steps to auto-format milestone tasks

1. Format > Text Styles (see fig. 1)
2. Items to Change: Milestone Tasks (see fig. 2)
3. Select the text color and background (I normally choose a lime green background that's bold)

Fig. 2: Select the task that you want formatted

How do I align text in columns?

Change titles: Unhappy with the alignment or labels for the titles? Just double-click the titles to edit them

If you're interested in changing the column for the graphical indicators after it's been created - change alignment or change column heading - just double-click the column header and you'll have five properties of the column that you can change:

• Field name: Text1
• Title: Finish on Time?
• Align Title: Center
• Align data: Center
• Width
• Header Text Wrapping