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Book review: Microsoft Project 2019 Step by Step

The cover of the Step by Step book for Microsoft Project. Written by Cindy Lewis. — The cover

It’s that time again! Get ready for another book review in regards to Project and Project Management. And I got to say, it’s been a while! The last book I reviewed was by Eric Uyttewaal on Forecast Programming in June 2018.

Today I’m reviewing Microsoft Project 2019 Step by Step. It’s part of the well established book series “Step by Step” and as such we have high hopes on learning how to work with the tool Microsoft Project. The book was authored by Cindy Lewis, a name that should be familiar with you by now. But just in case it isn’t, lets you up to speed:

PowerApps baby steps – Model driven or Canvas?

Hi reader, welcome to part two of this new series on TPC. In the previous article I started with a short explanation on why I’m doing this set of articles on PowerApps. In that article I spoke briefly about the two different kinds of apps you can create: Model driven and Canvas apps.

In this article I’m diving in deeper and exporting the two options in more detail. In which instances would you choose a Canvas app over Model driven, and the other way around. Moreover, I’m keeping in mind that we are specifically interested in Project Management solutions.

PowerApps baby steps – Introduction

Welcome reader, in the introduction post about PowerApps on TPC. For those of you that are new to the blog: I’m a Microsoft Project (Online) consultant. And the blog you are currently on is my way of venting out ideas I got in the field, as well as exploring new fields of interest.

Previous series have been “About posts” (which were larger than usual explorations of single features within MS Project), the Flaw’s series that started it all and a currently frequently returning subject on the UserVoice items related to Project and Portfolio Management.

This is the first post in a new series in which I take my first baby steps into the world of PowerApps and related technologies (such as Flow, Forms and AI). I have played around with PowerApps before, and I have implemented multiple Flows at customers already. But I feel that I’m “not quite there yet” in regards to providing the best solutions.

In the series I’ll explore PowerApps solutions from a PPM consultants perspective. Exploring options that can help you in your daily life working with the Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management tool set (and yes that’s more than just Project and Project Online).

Lets begin!

The future of (Microsoft) Project and Portfolio Management

Let’s start with a little disclaimer, the following article is a brainstorm experiment by my hand. There’s no real crystal ball involved. This article is an exploration on where the world of Project and Portfolio management is heading.

Obviously, any prediction of the future will change that future because we are preparing differently for it. This was excellently described in the first chapters of Homo Deus a book I’m currently reading (and yes the inspiration for writing this article).

But, because it won’t happen exactly like I describe it doesn’t mean at all that we should not dream about the future. Or write these kinds of articles. There might even be a smart Microsoft employee that reads the article and picks it up and makes it reality.

Just a warning: I couldn’t find/use a lot of pictures for this article. Just chew through the text please :-).

What Business Owners Need to Know About Scaled Agile Frameworks

Hi Readers, Here’s another guest post for you to enjoy. It’s the third time for Ashley to join TPC. You might have seen her previous work on the top 5 trends of 2018 and 2019 for Project Management.

This time I’ve asked Ashley to look into Scaled Agile, as I believe it’s a great way to work with Agile and have a structure in place at the same time. So without taking to much time from you, here is Ashley again with

UserVoice #6: Roadmap allow zooming to quarters and years

Hi all lovely readers,

Welcome back to the UserVoice series. It’s starting to grow on me and I’m happy to know that Microsoft is looking at the UserVoice pages and are involved in solving the user needs. You can help out by voting! so please do vote on any of the items I’ve previously covered together with my fellow MVP’s. And make sure you vote on this item as well :-).

Today I’m looking at a Roadmap UserVoice item and I’m doing this together with Ben Howard.

Teams 2 Project, App introduction

Hi again reader, I hope you are doing wonderful! I’m excited. And let me tell you why. Projectum, the company I work for, created a new PowerApp that lets you link specific parts of a Project Online Project to a Teams Channel.

Now why is this great? Well just ask the 121 voters on this UserVoice item I recently covered. In the last post I did I shared the 15 items Microsoft needs more information for to implement. Projectum took a shot at it, and let me say it is spot on! And even better yet! It’s free and available for you to download right now.

UserVoice #5: Tell us more articles

Hi all you lovely readers,

We are on the right track with the articles about the UserVoice website for Project Online, Microsoft Project and like minded software such as Planner.

And with the additional attention it’s getting, it would be great to get a number of items closed and implemented wouldn’t you say?

Top 5 Project Management Trends Reshaping 2019

Hi reader,

It’s a wonderful world where the TPC blog attracts enough attention that other people want to contribute to it’s content! I’ve had multiple guest bloggers on, some even multiple times such as former colleague Hester Blok (who did an excellent at making workflows in Project Server a lot more understandable).

Today there’s another return author, Ashley Lipman. She contributed previously about the Project Management trends shaping 2018. And is back here with the Top 5 Project Management Trends reshaping 2019.

As with the previous article, I’ll come back on at the end giving you my (Microsoft minded) take on what she wrote. With that, here’s Ashley:

Microsoft Roadmap Flow Deep Dive Part 2

This is the second part where I take a deep dive into the Microsoft Flow that is created in association with Microsoft Roadmap.

The previous post describes the Flow that is created when we link a Project from Project Online to the Roadmap. This post will continue with a close look at the Roadmap Flow that is created when linking with an Azure Board.