Microsoft Project: shared views to align schedules
When each team builds its schedules its own way, nobody can compare them any more. Shared, ready-to-use views align practices without constraining anyone.
Team A
Team B
Shared view
Microsoft Project leaves a lot of freedom: everyone chooses their columns, tables and filters. After a few months, each team has its habits, and schedules no longer look alike.
The problem shows when consolidating
One team tracks percent complete, the other a home-made status column. One fills in resources, the other does not. The day two projects must be compared, or reviewed in committee, everything has to be reworked by hand.
Shared views, not a straitjacket
The answer is not to ban personal views. It is to offer everyone the same reference views, ready to use: the same columns in the same order, the same filters, the same reports. Everyone can keep their working views, but everyone can read the other team's schedule.
What a shared view should contain
- the task, its resource, its start and finish dates;
- remaining work, rather than percent complete alone;
- links and milestones, to read the schedule's logic.
Install them for everyone
Shared views are only worth something if everyone has them. That is one of the benefits of More With Project: ready-to-use views and reports, the same for every team, deployed with the add-on.