Book review: Forecast scheduling with Microsoft Project 2013

In the time I was busy settling in, in my new role as a dad I got an interesting offer. I was asked by Eric Uyttewaal to join the team to review his new book pre-release. A chance to get my hands on a book before it even hit the shelves, cool! Needless to say I took the opportunity with both hands.

Today the book came in the mail, crispy new. Sadly, this is all I have to show for my reviewing actions, due to limited time as a new dad, and some e-mail trouble, only 3 of the 13 chapters I reviewed got to the team. That’s the reason, I believe, you will not find me in the acknowledgements on page 3.

On to the book!

It’s a whale, just like Forecast scheduling with Microsoft Project 2010. A big book with 13 chapters of scheduling best practices in total 761 pages of MS Project goodness.

Although the book holds mostly the content that can also be found in the 2010 version it has some great content specific for Microsoft Project Professional 2013. I was especially charmed by the description of the new reporting engine (pages 537 – 546).

Furthermore it holds a whole lot of tips, traps and new feature highlights specific to MS Project 2013. The Forecast scheduling method Eric talks about in his book is a great way to optimize any schedule. It is a predictive approach and subjects like the Critical Path, Resource Critical Path and Earned Value all have their place within the book.

Chapters 1 to 8 talk about the different aspects of setting up your schedule the correct way. Chapter 9 talks about finding the Optimal Schedule, this is the biggest chapter in the book and the one I will reread again due to the awesome content. Chapters 10 to 13 wrap up with reporting, updating and a summary of the whole book.

If you haven’t read the 2010 book and if you are working with Microsoft Project 2013 this book will be of great value to you. I would highly recommend getting yourself a copy, I give the book 5 stars.