MS Project course in Utrecht

For the MS Project Basics course you don't need any prior knowledge of MS Project. It is helpful, though, if you have basic experience with Windows and with working on projects. You don't need to have worked with planning software before. The course starts from the basics and builds up step by step, so that you can plan and manage projects independently in MS Project.

The MS Project Basics course is suitable for anyone who plans or manages projects with Microsoft Project. Think of project managers, project leaders, project planners, project administration staff and project controllers. Even if you are just starting out in a project role and want to professionalise your project planning, this classroom course fits in well with your day-to-day work.

In the MS Project Basics course you learn to plan and manage projects in Microsoft Project. You work with calendars, timelines, entering tasks, dependencies, assigning resources and resolving over-allocation. You also learn to set deadlines, record a baseline, update progress and produce reports for those involved in the project. Afterwards you apply these skills directly in your own project administration.

Yes, on completion of the MS Project Basics course you receive a certificate of participation from Learnit. This certificate confirms that you have taken the course and have mastered the basic skills for project planning and project management in MS Project. The course is taught in a classroom setting in a small group, led by an experienced trainer.

Yes, the MS Project Basics course can also be taken as an in-company course. You decide on the location, date and group composition yourself, and the content can be tailored to the projects and planning issues within your organisation. The classroom course is given by an experienced trainer in a small group, so there is room for your own practical examples.

MS Project is still the standard within organisations that work with complex schedules, dependencies between tasks, resource management and baselines. Tools such as Asana, Monday or Trello are stronger for light team coordination and kanban work, but lack functionality for detailed Gantt schedules, critical path analysis and over-allocation warnings. Do you work in an environment with multiple projects, fixed resources and formal progress reporting? Then MS Project is usually the logical choice. For agile teams with short iterations and few dependencies, a lighter tool is often sufficient. In the MS Project Basics course (classroom) you learn how to set up tasks, dependencies, resources and baselines. That is precisely the functionality for which people still prefer MS Project over lighter alternatives.

A YouTube tutorial works perfectly well if you want to look up one individual function, for example how to adjust a Gantt chart. For building a complete working method it falls short. In the classroom-based MS Project Basics course you work through the entire project cycle in a small group: calendars, tasks, dependencies, assigning resources, resolving over-allocation, setting a baseline and updating progress. An experienced trainer looks at your file with you and corrects you immediately where you get stuck. You may bring along your own practical examples, something a tutorial does not offer. Choose the classroom format if you are going to use MS Project on a structural basis and want to avoid building a plan that runs into problems later. Choose self-study if occasionally looking at someone else's plan is enough.

MS Project supports both approaches. It was originally designed for waterfall planning with Gantt charts, dependencies between tasks and critical path calculation. In the current versions you can also work in an agile way: Kanban-style task boards, sprint planning and backlog management are built in as standard. The MS Project Basics course focuses on the classic planning techniques: entering tasks, creating dependencies, assigning resources, setting a baseline and monitoring progress. You need that foundation whatever methodology you use. For purely agile teams, tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps are generally more common. If you work in a hybrid way. With an overall project schedule at programme level and agile teams underneath. Then MS Project really comes into its own. The classroom course.