Advice for the Project Management Professional (PMP)

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Appendix A
Baseline Plan, Actual Costs, and Actual Times
Once you complete the initial process of creating a plan—entering tasks, establishing
dependencies, assigning costs, and so on—you are ready to set a baseline plan. By comparing
the information in your baseline plan to an updated plan during the course of the
project, you can identify and solve problems. After the project ends, you can use the baseline
and actual information to plan similar, future projects more accurately. To use Project
2007 to help control projects, you must establish a baseline plan, enter actual costs, and
enter actual durations.
Establishing a Baseline Plan
An important part of project management is setting a baseline plan. If you plan to compare
actual information such as durations and costs, you must first save the Project 2007
file as a baseline. Select Tools from the Menu bar, point to Tracking, and then click Set
Baseline. Before setting a baseline, you must complete the baseline plan by entering time,
cost, and human resources information. Be careful not to set a baseline until you have
completed the baseline plan. If you do save a baseline before completing the baseline plan,
Project 2007 allows you to save up to 10 baselines. You can then clear unwanted baseline
plans.
Even though you can clear a baseline plan or save multiple baselines, it is a good idea
to save a separate, backup file of the original baseline for your project. Enter actuals and
save that information in the main file, but always keep a backup baseline file without
actuals. Keeping separate baseline and actual files will allow you to return to the original
file in case you ever need to use it again.
To rename resource.mpp and then save it as a baseline plan in Project 2007:
1. Save resource.mpp as a new file named baseline.mpp. Click File on the Menu
bar, and then click Save As. Type baseline as the filename, and then click Save.
2. Open the Save Baseline dialog box. Click Tools on the Menu bar, point
to Tracking, and then click Set Baseline. The Set Baseline dialog box is
displayed. Click the Baseline list arrow to reveal multiple baselines, as shown
in Figure A-48.
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