New Article: The Project Nobody Sees - Why the Real Project Never Appears on the Gantt Chart
Tool Update: Copilot Credit Usage Now Has a Dashboard
Featured Masterclass: Bridge the Gap - Seamlessly Connect Microsoft Project to Planner Premium
Live Event (8/26): Connect Microsoft Project Desktop to Copilot and AI Agents for a Modern PMO
PM Best Practice: Check the Logic Before You Point Anything At It
Tuesday Brief: An AI agent can now read your entire project schedule. Every dependency, every baseline, every slipped milestone. Wednesday's live session shows you exactly how that works, and it is genuinely useful. Ronald B. Smith opens this issue with the other half of the story, which is everything about a project that never makes it into the file in the first place. We also look at what happens when AI stops being a free assumption in your plan.
New Article: The Project Nobody Sees - Why the Real Project Never Appears on the Gantt Chart
Ronald B. Smith, MBA, PMP, argues that every project runs on two layers: the official one everyone can see, and the unofficial one that decides whether the official one survives.
He walks through what lives on that second layer. Trust as the currency that buys speed. Conflict as data rather than as failure. The politics of getting your project the people, time, and protection it needs. The steady voice that keeps an anxious stakeholder from escalating.
None of it appears in a scheduling tool. Worth sitting with in a week when we spend a lot of time on what the tools can now do.
Tool Update: Copilot Credit Usage Now Has a Dashboard
Microsoft's August 11 release added a Consumption Dashboard in Viva Insights that tracks Copilot credit usage across AI services.
When AI cost scaled with headcount, it sat in an overhead line and nobody asked a PM about it. Credit-based consumption makes that cost variable, and variable cost attached to project activity is something you now have to plan for.
This piece covers who can actually see the data (fewer people than you would expect), why "we'll use AI to speed this up" is no longer free in a project plan, and the governance question worth settling in writing before anyone starts reading consumption figures as a performance metric.
Featured Masterclass: Bridge the Gap - Seamlessly Connect Microsoft Project to Planner Premium
In this hour-long session from the MPUG member library, this week's presenter, Isidro Ávila, demonstrates ProjectData.io's EZ Import, walks through moving MPP files into Planner Premium, and covers where bi-directional sync and the PDS Portfolio Tracker fit for teams working across both tools.
Useful background if you want context before Wednesday, and it stands on its own if your Project and Planner data currently live in two disconnected worlds.
Live Event (8/26): Connect Microsoft Project Desktop to Copilot and AI Agents for a Modern PMO
Your MPP files hold milestones, dependencies, baselines, resource assignments, and critical path data. Most of it stays locked inside individual files, out of reach for Copilot and for any portfolio-level analysis. Isidro Ávila of ProjectData.io demonstrates PD Project AI, a Project MCP parser that securely reads Microsoft Project Desktop files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint and makes their schedule data available to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol.
What You'll Learn:
How a Project MCP parser turns MPP files into secure, agent-ready schedule data
Practical ways to cut the manual effort behind schedule analysis and status reporting
How Copilot agents can surface schedule, resource, dependency, and delivery risks
An approach to building consistent portfolio intelligence across Project Desktop and Planner
🗓️ Wednesday, August 26 🕛 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET 📍 Live on Zoom 🏅 1 PMI PDU: Business Acumen
MPUG hosts live events with leading experts on Wednesdays from 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET! MPUG members get access to live events where you get direct access to industry leaders, actionable insights, hands-on training, and opportunities to earn PDUs.
8/26/2026: Connect Microsoft Project Desktop to Copilot and AI Agents for a Modern PMO | Learn More + Register Here
More events + Project Online retirement sessions coming soon!
PM Best Practice: Check the Logic Before You Point Anything At It
Before your next status cycle, filter your schedule for three things: tasks with no predecessor or successor, hard constraints like Must Finish On, and negative float. All three appear in the DCMA 14-point schedule assessment, and all three distort your critical path without announcing themselves. An agent reading a broken network will still report its conclusions with complete confidence.
