How to manage different detail levels in a project plan to be presented to different audiences?

Question

In any given project, a variety of detail levels are needed:- executive summary- technical summary- delivery team summary- delivery detailsHow can these different levels of detail be contained and published in the *same* project plan (specifically using MS Project 2007) ***without*** the "higher levels" being able to drill-into the lower ones?Is it possible with the tool, or would multiple project plans need to be kept to be able to share with the representatives of each level?

Answer 1

Great question! In many project management texts, they refer to schedules at different levels. But the problem is they never actually discuss how this is actually done in real life! So you are left knowing terms that you can't actually implement. So here is what I do in the real world, on real projects, to provide schedules at different levels for different audiences...

Normally I create custom views in my schedules that present the right information for the right audience. Custom views (found in all versions of MS Project) enable you to bring together a table, a filter, a group, and a screen type together to show specific tasks, summary tasks, and milestones to tell a specific story. It could be to show specific levels of summary tasks to present a high-level schedule to management. It could be key milestones in the future to show the team or management when key objectives will be achieved. It could even be to present a simple look-ahead report that only shows things going on over the next 45 days. So that is my normal way to present different levels of schedules.

I also on occasion create roll-up schedules, another feature in MS Project. This feature can get a little interesting when you want to present certain tasks on a specific line so I tend to create a second file that serves to show the roll-up as I want it displayed. Yes, I do make a second separate small schedule to serve this purpose. But it always looks really sharp and is worth the extra effort...

So that is how I do this in the real world...

Answer 2

There really are multiple answers to this. I would have to know more to really able to advise but I can provide a few ideas that may point you in the right direction. MS Project uses a multi-level task set up, I noted in your question that you did not want to use a multi-level task structure. You could use task level custom fields and then design your views / reports to filter on custom fields. In a similar vein, you can also use a WBS with tasks associated with different groups using different WBS Values. I know of one project manager that associates the resources with various groups and designs his filters / views based on who the tasks are assigned to. In addition, reports, whether MS Project Reports or Excel / Power BI reports can be generated to filter for the various level of details / attributes that you require.

O completely different avenue to explore may be to use a Master / Sub Project scheme. Use the Master Project to display high level milestones and then use sub projects for the various task groups, linking various points of the sub projects to milestones in the master project.