MS Project lacks basic project management features!

[Ace Frahm]

I have found things wrong/missing with MS Project that should be patched!

1. It assumes all materials are limitless. Let's say I've got a pile of
plywood and 2x4's and some boxes of nails. I can't use MS Project to
determine how many bird houses I can make before I run out of one of these
ingredients. The program is written in such a way that it can't keep track
of your inventory of available stock. It assumes I can ALWAYS buy more
materials. This is almost never the case in the real world. In the real
world, I've only got so much materials, I can't get more. I want MS Project
to tell me how much I can do with what I've got. This is a basic,
fundamental question anyone trying to run a project has with EVERY project.
Nearly each and every project needs to do several calculations like this, but
MS Project can't. This flaw alone makes me sorry I paid full retail for MS
Project.

2. It can't make reasonable work schedule. If I have a group of people
assigned to bird house painting, I can't get MS Project to spit out a
personalized work schedule for each ACTUAL living person in that group. MS
Project just assumes that a group of bird-house painters are all exactly
alike, with exactly the same schedule, and every person in the group is
completely interchangeable with all the other members of the group. In the
real world, this might happen, but almost never does. It can't account for
the one painter in the group who works half-days. It can't account for the
one painter who gets Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

Let's say I want to assign one particular painter from my "bird house
painters" group to paint a large special order bird house. Then I want to
assign the rest of the bird house painters to do the normal bird house
painting task. MS Project can't do it. It will treat the human bird house
painters as though they were just material ingredients to bird houses, one
nail no different from any other nail, no person unique from any other person
in a MS Project group resource. I guess what I'm trying to say is that
Project doesn't cope in a real world way with working unit groups of people
who are unique persons, who can belong to more than one working group and
also be assigned to perform individual tasks of their own.

I want project to automatically make a REAL work schedule I can print and
post, and reasonably expect workers to follow.

3. When I assign a group to a series of tasks, I want a setting that will
assign ONE person from that group until his available work time is used up,
and THEN assign the next person in the group until that person’s time is used
up, and so on. I don’t want the ENTIRE GROUP working on the very same task
at the very same time. I want the group to take care of a bunch of ONE or
TWO person tasks that could be happening either simultaneously or at
different times. Sometimes I don’t care which particular member does them,
so long as the tasks get done (random group member selection). Sometimes I
care what order the group members are assigned (such as, when I assign
“painter†group to a task, always assign Tom first, no matter what. Then
always assign Sally second, when Tom’s time is used up. Miguel, at the
bottom of my group list, would always be assigned last, if needed.) I want
to be able to change this ordering too, such as “After the third project
milestone is met, Assign Sally to tasks first, THEN assign Tom to tasks
second, and assign Miguel third, then assign all other members of the painter
group randomly after thatâ€.

I think this would require a new way for MS Project to specify the maximum
number of people from different groups who can work on a given task at the
same time.

But I do need know WHO is going to work on what, and when, so when it
selects a painter at random from the painter group, it must show the name of
the person it picked, not just “painter group quantity x peopleâ€. (but it
can have placeholder names for job slots not yet filled by a specific person.
Key thing is, each person of labor resource must have a specific identifier,
not treated like interchangeable undistinguishable parts.)

4. Resource leveling merely attempts to create one of many possible
solutions. MS Project has no means to create the OPTIMUM solution, or even a
few different possible solutions. If I want to optimize the solution to
maximize the number of nails I have left, MS Project can't do it. It can't
even optimize money savings. I want tools that can optimize any quantity in
the program, such as finding a way to give a particular worker the most time
off, conserve a particular material, make the most profit.

Because the projects’ end date isn’t always what matters most.

5. Let's say I make wedding cakes. There are three tasks I need done before
I can make a cake, and EACH TASK MAKES MATERIALS USED IN LATER TASKS. The
cake layers must be baked, the frosting must be whipped together, and the
bride&groom cake topper ornament must be painted. At least some of these
materials must be created before the "final cake assembly" task could begin.
But just as soon as these material producing tasks have made some items,
final cake assembly can begin. AND, the “final cake assembly†can continue
until the ingredients are used up (when the quantity of any one of the
ingredients reaches 0 on the material resources list.) The “final cake
assembly†TASK would not be associated with the “bake layers†task, the “whip
frosting†task, or the “paint figurines taskâ€, it would begin whenever there
were enough materials available to assemble a cake. If MS Project worked
right, I could design the “final cake assembly†task so that it only begins
when there’s enough material to make 5 cakes. And then the “final cake
assembly†task would end when one of the three ingredient materials runs out.
Let’s say you’ve got 40 cake layers, 5 whipped frostings, and zero cake
topper-figurines left. The “final cake assembly†task would stop because you
have no cake toppers left. If MS Project worked right, I could also specify
that the “final cake assembly†task must stop after making 8 finished cakes,
even if there’s more than enough materials to make additional finished cakes.


In MS Project, you can't simulate this, because project has no way of making
a material resource become available as the result of a task completion.
And, MS Project can't make a task (like the final cake assembly) start just
as soon as all the necessary material resources become available. And,
Project can’t automatically make a task end after producing quantity X
material resources.

These production-assembly problems occur all the time in project management,
but MS Project has no means to describe them, let alone find the best
solution.

6. Project can't simulate the availability of material from suppliers.
Let's suppose I own a juice press because I make orange juice, apple juice
and grapefruit juice for a living. I may have several different suppliers of
oranges, apples, and grapefruits. Each supplier may produce any combination
of these fruits at any given time of the year. Sometimes no supplier has any
fruit for sale, sometimes all my suppliers have the same fruit for sale all
at once. And of course, each supplier charges a different price than the
other suppliers, for the same fruit, at the same time. If I put a task in MS
Project, "Press some orange juice", it could only occur when oranges are
available from suppliers. If I have a task to "Press 500 gallons of
orange-grapefruit citrus blend juice" with a price constraint of $3.89 per
gallon, it can only happen when both oranges AND grapefruit (material
resources in Project) are available. AND, the cost constraint of the task
can ONLY be met if the supplier's price combinations work out. MS Project
can't cope with this, it can only make one resource calendar for one
material, not for multiple suppliers. But again, this is a problem that
occurs constantly in real-world project management.


Perhaps an MVP knows a creative way to force such results out of MS Project
with extra code or add-ons? I'm dying to know if this MS Project tool can be
used to solve these problems, even if you have to jury-rig it.

 

[Trevor Rabey]

Some of the things you say it can't do, it actually can do with some
ordinarily creative (but not radical jury-rig) design.
Results only have to be coaxed out, like horse whispering, not forced out.
Others it doesn't do by design because they are not consistent with the
underlying concepts, mainly of CPM.
What it does do, and is designed to do, CPM, it does pretty well, I think,
even with its handfull of well-known lovable actual flaws.
And that alone can be used to make a lot of money, in a very wide range of
types of project.
Being able to immediately re-calculate the critical path is a neat trick in
itself that never ceases to amaze me. Leveling is neat too.
CPM/PERT etc are only one part of general Operations Research and various
other parts of OR are concerned with inventory, optimisation, queuing, route
planning, etc. "production-assembly problems" also fall into another entire
class of OR problem.
True, MSP doesn't optimise but it wouldn't cost only $800 if it did.
It would be nice to leave it running overnight, grinding numbers into dust,
and wake up to the perfect project plan.
Real world projects don't have to be anywhere near optimum to be vastly
improved over the routine chaos and waste that prevails in most of them.

MSP and CPM is about getting the job done, ie the project. It is Task based
so if you haven't got the stuff to do a Task the project stops. In the real
world you do keep buying stuff until the Task is done or you don't have a
project. If you run out, you haven't planned it and shouldn't have started.
In construction, there is plenty of software for estimating the amounts of
materials and labour and cost from the measurement of the quantities and
production rates and cost tables but it does not give any information about
the schedule, can't identify a critical path, doesn't optimise anything,
doesn't design the house for you, etc. They still have a place complementary
to MSP.

I prefer the right tools, for the right job, used the way they are intended
and designed to used, to a Swiiss army knife which doesn't seem to anything
properly except cut string, but it doesn't even do that automatically.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Ace,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I think the problem exists because of a different understanding of the word
"Project". In MS Project's design is the universal definition of a project
being a unique undertaking with a clearly definable start and finish,
requiring the management of money materiel and men. It thus uses the
Critical Path Method for project scheduelling.

In your case, you seem to be running a production line of some sort. MS
Project is designed to help plan and schedule for production of the first
bird house or wedding cake, but not a series of them. For that you need
production software of some sort. That does not mean you can't use Project
for what you're doing, but you will run in to the sorts of problems you're
seeing. There's no inventory control, no means of Project guessing which
resource to use (you have to do that) and certainly no optimization
facilities other than trial and error. MS Project is just not designed for
that.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

See embedded...

I have found things wrong/missing with MS Project that should be patched!

1. It assumes all materials are limitless. Let's say I've got a pile of
plywood and 2x4's and some boxes of nails. I can't use MS Project to
determine how many bird houses I can make before I run out of one of these
ingredients. The program is written in such a way that it can't keep
track
of your inventory of available stock. It assumes I can ALWAYS buy more
materials. This is almost never the case in the real world. In the real
world, I've only got so much materials, I can't get more. I want MS
Project
to tell me how much I can do with what I've got. This is a basic,
fundamental question anyone trying to run a project has with EVERY
project.
Nearly each and every project needs to do several calculations like this,
but
MS Project can't. This flaw alone makes me sorry I paid full retail for
MS
Project.

You're putting the cart before the horse here. Project management is not
about what you can do with what you've got. It's about estimating what you
are going to need in order to achieve your business's strategic objectives.
Project will tell you that if your business requires 25 birdhouses, you will
somehow need to acquire XXX amount of plywood, YYY number of nails, hire ZZZ
workers, and set aside 6 weeks to build them. You input the objective,
Project tells you what you need to do to achieve it. If you don't have
enough resources to accomplish that end, you only have two options - acquire
more resources or reduce the scope of your objectives.

2. It can't make reasonable work schedule. If I have a group of people
assigned to bird house painting, I can't get MS Project to spit out a
personalized work schedule for each ACTUAL living person in that group.
MS
Project just assumes that a group of bird-house painters are all exactly
alike, with exactly the same schedule, and every person in the group is
completely interchangeable with all the other members of the group. In
the
real world, this might happen, but almost never does. It can't account
for
the one painter in the group who works half-days. It can't account for
the
one painter who gets Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

It absolutely will account for that - that's the whole idea behind the
existence of resource calendars - if it appears not to in your plan, you're
not listing your resources in sufficient detail. You don't have a single
resource that is a group of 5 painters - you have 5 different resources Joe
Painter, Bill Painter, Fred Painter, Wilma Painter, and Betty Painter. You
can group them for convenience IF they have the same skills and IF they work
the same schedule but unless they are truly interchangeable parts you need
to list them each with their own individual resource sheet entry.

Let's say I want to assign one particular painter from my "bird house
painters" group to paint a large special order bird house. Then I want to
assign the rest of the bird house painters to do the normal bird house
painting task. MS Project can't do it. It will treat the human bird
house
painters as though they were just material ingredients to bird houses, one
nail no different from any other nail, no person unique from any other
person
in a MS Project group resource. I guess what I'm trying to say is that
Project doesn't cope in a real world way with working unit groups of
people
who are unique persons, who can belong to more than one working group and
also be assigned to perform individual tasks of their own.

See above - the only reason it does let you do that is you have taken too
many shortcuts defining your resource set. If you want Project to treat the
painters as unique individuals you must list them as unique individuals -
this functionality or lack thereof is 100% under your control.

I want project to automatically make a REAL work schedule I can print and
post, and reasonably expect workers to follow.

Project never creates a work schedule - YOU create the work schedule by
inputting the project's parameters. Project is only a calculator, creating
its output based on your input - GIGO.

3. When I assign a group to a series of tasks, I want a setting that will
assign ONE person from that group until his available work time is used
up,
and THEN assign the next person in the group until that personâ?Ts time is
used
up, and so on. I donâ?Tt want the ENTIRE GROUP working on the very same
task
at the very same time. I want the group to take care of a bunch of ONE or
TWO person tasks that could be happening either simultaneously or at
different times. Sometimes I donâ?Tt care which particular member does
them,
so long as the tasks get done (random group member selection). Sometimes I
care what order the group members are assigned (such as, when I assign
â?opainterâ? group to a task, always assign Tom first, no matter what.
Then
always assign Sally second, when Tomâ?Ts time is used up. Miguel, at the
bottom of my group list, would always be assigned last, if needed.) I
want
to be able to change this ordering too, such as â?oAfter the third project
milestone is met, Assign Sally to tasks first, THEN assign Tom to tasks
second, and assign Miguel third, then assign all other members of the
painter
group randomly after thatâ?.

A task is a physical action performed by ONE resource or a resource team
working as a unit and resulting in ONE specifc deliverable. Just as it
appears you're not breaking your resources down into sufficient detail,
apparently you're taking shortcuts with your task breakdown as well. If
THIS birdhouse requires JOE's unique skills, both Joe and the birdhouse
require separate entries. If this task can be done by anyone in a generic
group of 5 painters and you only want one painter on it, the Painter group
has a max availability of 500% but you only assign it 100% - that's one
person out of the 5 and we don't care who. If you want all 5 on the task at
once, assign the resource at 500%. Remember when you have a group, they are
interchangeable parts and you don't care who it is that shows up each day of
the task - as long asa warm body is there that's all that matters. If you
have to have a schedule that says Julie comes in on Tuesday to paint
birdhouses, Julie MUST be listed as a separate resource, not a part of the
generic group "painters." Caution - it's an either/or thing. If you have a
5 painters and Julie is one of them, you only have two choices - treat them
all as interchangeable parts and have one resource "painters" with a max
availability of 500% and not list Julie at all, or have 2 resources, Julie
with a max avail of 100% and a generic group "painters" consisting of the
other 4 and its max avail is thus 400%.

I think this would require a new way for MS Project to specify the maximum
number of people from different groups who can work on a given task at the
same time.

It already shows it - but it's not Project that specifies it, it's you who
does it by the assignment percentage you choose. If you want 3 painters out
of the 5 in the group, assign painters at 300%.

But I do need know WHO is going to work on what, and when, so when it
selects a painter at random from the painter group, it must show the name
of
the person it picked, not just â?opainter group quantity x peopleâ?.
(but it
can have placeholder names for job slots not yet filled by a specific
person.
Key thing is, each person of labor resource must have a specific
identifier,
not treated like interchangeable undistinguishable parts.)

See above - if you need to know WHO is assigned, you must list them as
individuals and assign them as individuals - you are the manager making the
decision as to who is best suited to do the job at hand, not MS Project. It
never decides, only reflects your decisions and you can't expect to make
your job easier by off-loading that decision-making responsibility to the
software. A project manager is first and formost a MANAGER, a
decsion-maker, not just a clerk inputting data into a computer and following
its dictates.

4. Resource leveling merely attempts to create one of many possible
solutions. MS Project has no means to create the OPTIMUM solution, or
even a
few different possible solutions. If I want to optimize the solution to
maximize the number of nails I have left, MS Project can't do it. It
can't
even optimize money savings. I want tools that can optimize any quantity
in
the program, such as finding a way to give a particular worker the most
time
off, conserve a particular material, make the most profit.

It doesn't do that because like all other PM software I'm aware of, it is a
work scheduling program - period. IT IS NOT AN ACCOUNTING PROGRAM! IT IS
NOT A MANAGEMENT EXPERT SYSTEM! IT IS NOT A STRATEGIC PLANNING SYSTEM! All
of those things are your job, not the software's. Only you know how many
nails are required to make a birdhouse. Project will tell you how many you
need if you need to make 100 birdhouses but you have to tell it how many are
needed for 1.

Resource leveling is not resource optimizin g. It does one thing and one
thing only - resoolve scheduling conflicts. I have Julie scheduled to spend
8 hours on Monday painting birdhouses and I've also scheduled her to spend 8
hours on Monday varnishing perches, two mutually exclusive tasks. She's
scheduled somehow to magically achieve 16 man-hours of work during the
course of an 8-hour workday, an impossiblity. She can't be two places at
once. Resource leveling will move one of those tasks to Tuesday assuming
she's free. period. That's all it does. Anything else is your
responsibility because anything else requires either a personnel decision or
a strategic decision only a human manager can make.

Because the projectsâ?T end date isnâ?Tt always what matters most.

5. Let's say I make wedding cakes. There are three tasks I need done
before
I can make a cake, and EACH TASK MAKES MATERIALS USED IN LATER TASKS. The
cake layers must be baked, the frosting must be whipped together, and the
bride&groom cake topper ornament must be painted. At least some of these
materials must be created before the "final cake assembly" task could
begin.
But just as soon as these material producing tasks have made some items,
final cake assembly can begin. AND, the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? can
continue
until the ingredients are used up (when the quantity of any one of the
ingredients reaches 0 on the material resources list.) The â?ofinal cake
assemblyâ? TASK would not be associated with the â?obake layersâ? task,
the â?owhip
frostingâ? task, or the â?opaint figurines taskâ?, it would begin
whenever there
were enough materials available to assemble a cake. If MS Project worked
right, I could design the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task so that it only
begins
when thereâ?Ts enough material to make 5 cakes. And then the â?ofinal
cake
assemblyâ? task would end when one of the three ingredient materials runs
out.
Letâ?Ts say youâ?Tve got 40 cake layers, 5 whipped frostings, and zero
cake
topper-figurines left. The â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task would stop
because you
have no cake toppers left. If MS Project worked right, I could also
specify
that the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task must stop after making 8 finished
cakes,
even if thereâ?Ts more than enough materials to make additional finished
cakes.


In MS Project, you can't simulate this, because project has no way of
making
a material resource become available as the result of a task completion.
And, MS Project can't make a task (like the final cake assembly) start
just
as soon as all the necessary material resources become available. And,
Project canâ?Tt automatically make a task end after producing quantity X
material resources.

MS Project is not a production management application, it is a project
management application. Projects are defined as time-limited undertaking
swith observable and discrete start and end points resulting in a unique,
observable, and quantifiable deliverable. MS Project's role in that is to
schedule the work required to make it happen and estimate the direct costs
involved. Everything else that needs to be done to make it happen lies
outside its universe.

These production-assembly problems occur all the time in project
management,
but MS Project has no means to describe them, let alone find the best
solution.

6. Project can't simulate the availability of material from suppliers.
Let's suppose I own a juice press because I make orange juice, apple juice
and grapefruit juice for a living. I may have several different suppliers
of
oranges, apples, and grapefruits. Each supplier may produce any
combination
of these fruits at any given time of the year. Sometimes no supplier has
any
fruit for sale, sometimes all my suppliers have the same fruit for sale
all
at once. And of course, each supplier charges a different price than the
other suppliers, for the same fruit, at the same time. If I put a task in
MS
Project, "Press some orange juice", it could only occur when oranges are
available from suppliers. If I have a task to "Press 500 gallons of
orange-grapefruit citrus blend juice" with a price constraint of $3.89 per
gallon, it can only happen when both oranges AND grapefruit (material
resources in Project) are available. AND, the cost constraint of the task
can ONLY be met if the supplier's price combinations work out. MS Project
can't cope with this, it can only make one resource calendar for one
material, not for multiple suppliers. But again, this is a problem that
occurs constantly in real-world project management.

Again, you're expecting it to do the managing for you, not merely crunch
data while you do the managing. It don't do that, and Heaven help us if any
software were to try.

Paint this on your bathroom mirror so you see it every day - "MS Project is
schedule planning and cost estimating software. IT IS NOT financial
modeling, planning, or management software!" It tells you nothing about
what strategy you should adopt in order to meet your business objectives.
It only deals with tactical planning.

No software is a one-application-does-it-all type of beast. The scenario
you're describing above is a classic case of numerical modeling which is
what Excel excels at..

 

[Ace Frahm]

It is clear that MS Project is incapable of dealing with the scope of
real-life working environment situations I constantly find myself in.

You haven't specified any software made to perform these specific functions
either, you just made a general statement about using Excel instead. Do you
have a spreadsheet that can solve these problems?

These are the problems I thought MS Project could solve easily, judging by
the features advetized on the outside of the box. These are the problems I
want solved. Just because I don't want to waste all my time figuring out
solutions to straightforward but complex & recurring problems doesn't make me
any less a "manager".

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Ace,

Well, you're absolutely right, it IS one of the main weaknesses of the
application and you are entitled to ask for it. But I'm not sure the feature
is "advertised on the box" as you claim.
Project seems to be written by and for software developers who have a major
problem seeing problems in other areas such as producing something.
I keep on preaching the good word and ask for solutions (this is not a patch
it is a major improvement); let's hope somebody listens...

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

It is clear that MS Project is incapable of dealing with the scope of
real-life working environment situations I constantly find myself in.

You haven't specified any software made to perform these specific
functions
either, you just made a general statement about using Excel instead. Do
you
have a spreadsheet that can solve these problems?

These are the problems I thought MS Project could solve easily, judging by
the features advetized on the outside of the box. These are the problems
I
want solved. Just because I don't want to waste all my time figuring out
solutions to straightforward but complex & recurring problems doesn't make
me
any less a "manager".

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

It's not at all clear that it is incapable of doing those things - in fact,
if you actually read my response you would see if you "studied up" a bit on
using it correctly, including reading up on some of the formal PM principles
(especially read PMI's "Guide to the PMBOK") underlaying its design, it
actually DOES do 90% of what you're claiming it doesn't. But you have to
bring something to the table in terms of learning how to use it - one thing
it doesn't do is hold your hand. You have to take the time to learn HOW to
use it properly to do those things. It's true it's sometimes
counter-intuitive. It's true you can't just install it on your computer,
hit the menu to start it up, and crank out plans the way you'd crank out
memos in Word after spending 10 minutes familiarizing yourself, but that's
not Project's fault. It's a powerful tool and like all powerful tools takes
some time to learn to use it most effectively. And you need to learn what
parts of your overall business process it is an effective aid in managing
and what parts other tools would be better suited. There is no "one tool
does it all" solution, ever.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

It is clear that MS Project is incapable of dealing with the scope of
real-life working environment situations I constantly find myself in.

You haven't specified any software made to perform these specific
functions
either, you just made a general statement about using Excel instead. Do
you
have a spreadsheet that can solve these problems?

These are the problems I thought MS Project could solve easily, judging by
the features advetized on the outside of the box. These are the problems
I
want solved. Just because I don't want to waste all my time figuring out
solutions to straightforward but complex & recurring problems doesn't make
me
any less a "manager".

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

This is NOT a matter if intuitive or not intuitive, it DOES NOT plan
material resources, full stop.

I do not know where your 90% in this area come from, but following are the
100% it does not do:

- It does not allow to simulate nor plan replenishment of material resources
since "negative consumption" is considered an error and blocked by the
software
- Thus it does not allow to keep track nor plan future availability of
material resources;
- Thus it has no way to automatically recalculate the schedule when material
resources are missing.

Of course you can calculate this by hand or use a better system to plan it
(Primavera?) but it is a job that needs to be done in a "material
deliverable" project and it is part of project management (since you like to
refer to the PMBOK, chapter 12 is entirely devoted to procurement!)

Let's add to this the near impossiblility to simultaneously schedule a
machine and an operator, and you will understand why people working in
projects with a material deliverable consider project a tool for amateurs...
I do not like to say this but negating it, thinking it is not necessary,
will stop Project forever from becoming in this kind of projects, the de
facto standard it has become in "intellectual" projects such as SW
development.

Greetings,

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Most of his message dealt with planning and assigning work resources. that's
the 90% was referring to. I realize (and said very clearly in my original
answer) that it does not plan for ordering or replenishment of material
resources nor does it do any inventory management of materials nor plan
production around material availability. What it does do, as you know, is
compute the total amount of materials that will be required to produce the
project deliverables and thus give an estimate of how much to include for
materials in the overall budget. But that's about it. As you say, material
management is an important part of project managment that Project doesn't
deal with. I teach my classes Project considers materials infinite in
supply and always available when needed and they need to develop their own
methods outside of MS Project to insure materials are where they're needed
when they're needed and in sufficient quantity to do the job. In that light
I also teach that one of the better justifications for a SNET constraint is
projected delivery dates of materials and if materials for a certain task
are coming in batches then the task needs to be broken up into a summary and
subtasks segments as well.

There are other areas of PM that Project doesn't touch on as well -
communication management, change management, risk management, capital
management. But what it does deal with - work scheduling and cost
estimating - it does quite well. I think it's unreasonable to think that
one tool should do everything. The craftsman uses a variety of specialized
tools, each one purpose-built to do its own part of the overall job.

I do agree with you completely with your views about the problem of
scheduling resources that must be scheduled together like the pilot and the
company plane. That oversight is truly an absurdity.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi,

This is NOT a matter if intuitive or not intuitive, it DOES NOT plan
material resources, full stop.

I do not know where your 90% in this area come from, but following are the
100% it does not do:

- It does not allow to simulate nor plan replenishment of material
resources
since "negative consumption" is considered an error and blocked by the
software
- Thus it does not allow to keep track nor plan future availability of
material resources;
- Thus it has no way to automatically recalculate the schedule when
material
resources are missing.

Of course you can calculate this by hand or use a better system to plan it
(Primavera?) but it is a job that needs to be done in a "material
deliverable" project and it is part of project management (since you like
to
refer to the PMBOK, chapter 12 is entirely devoted to procurement!)

Let's add to this the near impossiblility to simultaneously schedule a
machine and an operator, and you will understand why people working in
projects with a material deliverable consider project a tool for
amateurs...
I do not like to say this but negating it, thinking it is not necessary,
will stop Project forever from becoming in this kind of projects, the de
facto standard it has become in "intellectual" projects such as SW
development.

Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

It's not at all clear that it is incapable of doing those things - in fact,
if you actually read my response you would see if you "studied up" a bit on
using it correctly, including reading up on some of the formal PM principles
(especially read PMI's "Guide to the PMBOK") underlaying its design, it
actually DOES do 90% of what you're claiming it doesn't. But you have to
bring something to the table in terms of learning how to use it - one thing
it doesn't do is hold your hand. You have to take the time to learn HOW to
use it properly to do those things. It's true it's sometimes
counter-intuitive. It's true you can't just install it on your computer,
hit the menu to start it up, and crank out plans the way you'd crank out
memos in Word after spending 10 minutes familiarizing yourself, but
that's
not Project's fault. It's a powerful tool and like all powerful tools takes
some time to learn to use it most effectively. And you need to learn
what
parts of your overall business process it is an effective aid in managing
and what parts other tools would be better suited. There is no "one tool
does it all" solution, ever.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

It is clear that MS Project is incapable of dealing with the scope of
real-life working environment situations I constantly find myself in.

You haven't specified any software made to perform these specific
functions
either, you just made a general statement about using Excel instead.
Do
you
have a spreadsheet that can solve these problems?

These are the problems I thought MS Project could solve easily, judging by
the features advetized on the outside of the box. These are the problems
I
want solved. Just because I don't want to waste all my time figuring out
solutions to straightforward but complex & recurring problems doesn't make
me
any less a "manager".

"Steve House [Project MVP]" <[email protected]>
schreef in bericht See embedded...
I have found things wrong/missing with MS Project that should be
patched!

1. It assumes all materials are limitless. Let's say I've got a
pile
of
plywood and 2x4's and some boxes of nails. I can't use MS Project
to
determine how many bird houses I can make before I run out of one of
these
ingredients. The program is written in such a way that it can't
keep
track
of your inventory of available stock. It assumes I can ALWAYS buy more
materials. This is almost never the case in the real world. In the
real
world, I've only got so much materials, I can't get more. I want MS
Project
to tell me how much I can do with what I've got. This is a basic,
fundamental question anyone trying to run a project has with EVERY
project.
Nearly each and every project needs to do several calculations like
this,
but
MS Project can't. This flaw alone makes me sorry I paid full retail
for
MS
Project.

You're putting the cart before the horse here. Project management is not
about what you can do with what you've got. It's about estimating
what
yo
u
are going to need in order to achieve your business's strategic
objectives.
Project will tell you that if your business requires 25 birdhouses,
you
will
somehow need to acquire XXX amount of plywood, YYY number of nails, hire
ZZZ
workers, and set aside 6 weeks to build them. You input the
objective,
Project tells you what you need to do to achieve it. If you don't
have
enough resources to accomplish that end, you only have two options -
acquire
more resources or reduce the scope of your objectives.


2. It can't make reasonable work schedule. If I have a group of people
assigned to bird house painting, I can't get MS Project to spit out
a
personalized work schedule for each ACTUAL living person in that group.
MS
Project just assumes that a group of bird-house painters are all
exactly
alike, with exactly the same schedule, and every person in the group is
completely interchangeable with all the other members of the group. In
the
real world, this might happen, but almost never does. It can't account
for
the one painter in the group who works half-days. It can't account for
the
one painter who gets Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

It absolutely will account for that - that's the whole idea behind the
existence of resource calendars - if it appears not to in your plan,
you're
not listing your resources in sufficient detail. You don't have a single
resource that is a group of 5 painters - you have 5 different
resources
Joe
Painter, Bill Painter, Fred Painter, Wilma Painter, and Betty Painter.
You
can group them for convenience IF they have the same skills and IF
they
work
the same schedule but unless they are truly interchangeable parts you
need
to list them each with their own individual resource sheet entry.


Let's say I want to assign one particular painter from my "bird
house
painters" group to paint a large special order bird house. Then I want
to
assign the rest of the bird house painters to do the normal bird house
painting task. MS Project can't do it. It will treat the human
bird
house
painters as though they were just material ingredients to bird houses,
one
nail no different from any other nail, no person unique from any other
person
in a MS Project group resource. I guess what I'm trying to say is that
Project doesn't cope in a real world way with working unit groups of
people
who are unique persons, who can belong to more than one working
group
and
also be assigned to perform individual tasks of their own.

See above - the only reason it does let you do that is you have taken too
many shortcuts defining your resource set. If you want Project to treat
the
painters as unique individuals you must list them as unique individuals -
this functionality or lack thereof is 100% under your control.


I want project to automatically make a REAL work schedule I can
print
and
post, and reasonably expect workers to follow.

Project never creates a work schedule - YOU create the work schedule
by
inputting the project's parameters. Project is only a calculator,
creating
its output based on your input - GIGO.


3. When I assign a group to a series of tasks, I want a setting that
will
assign ONE person from that group until his available work time is used
up,
and THEN assign the next person in the group until that personâ?Ts time
is
used
up, and so on. I donâ?Tt want the ENTIRE GROUP working on the very
same
task
at the very same time. I want the group to take care of a bunch of ONE
or
TWO person tasks that could be happening either simultaneously or at
different times. Sometimes I donâ?Tt care which particular member does
them,
so long as the tasks get done (random group member selection).
Sometimes
I
care what order the group members are assigned (such as, when I assign
â?opainterâ? group to a task, always assign Tom first, no matter what.
Then
always assign Sally second, when Tomâ?Ts time is used up. Miguel,
at
the
bottom of my group list, would always be assigned last, if needed.) I
want
to be able to change this ordering too, such as â?oAfter the third
project
milestone is met, Assign Sally to tasks first, THEN assign Tom to tasks
second, and assign Miguel third, then assign all other members of
the
painter
group randomly after thatâ?.

A task is a physical action performed by ONE resource or a resource team
working as a unit and resulting in ONE specifc deliverable. Just as
it
appears you're not breaking your resources down into sufficient
detail,
apparently you're taking shortcuts with your task breakdown as well. If
THIS birdhouse requires JOE's unique skills, both Joe and the
birdhouse
require separate entries. If this task can be done by anyone in a
generic
group of 5 painters and you only want one painter on it, the Painter
group
has a max availability of 500% but you only assign it 100% - that's
one
person out of the 5 and we don't care who. If you want all 5 on the task
at
once, assign the resource at 500%. Remember when you have a group, they
are
interchangeable parts and you don't care who it is that shows up each day
of
the task - as long asa warm body is there that's all that matters. If
you
have to have a schedule that says Julie comes in on Tuesday to paint
birdhouses, Julie MUST be listed as a separate resource, not a part of
the
generic group "painters." Caution - it's an either/or thing. If you have
a
5 painters and Julie is one of them, you only have two choices - treat
them
all as interchangeable parts and have one resource "painters" with a max
availability of 500% and not list Julie at all, or have 2 resources,
Julie
with a max avail of 100% and a generic group "painters" consisting of the
other 4 and its max avail is thus 400%.


I think this would require a new way for MS Project to specify the
maximum
number of people from different groups who can work on a given task at
the
same time.

It already shows it - but it's not Project that specifies it, it's you
who
does it by the assignment percentage you choose. If you want 3 painters
out
of the 5 in the group, assign painters at 300%.


But I do need know WHO is going to work on what, and when, so when
it
selects a painter at random from the painter group, it must show the
name
of
the person it picked, not just â?opainter group quantity x
peopleâ?.
(but it
can have placeholder names for job slots not yet filled by a
specific
person.
Key thing is, each person of labor resource must have a specific
identifier,
not treated like interchangeable undistinguishable parts.)

See above - if you need to know WHO is assigned, you must list them as
individuals and assign them as individuals - you are the manager
making
the
decision as to who is best suited to do the job at hand, not MS Project.
It
never decides, only reflects your decisions and you can't expect to make
your job easier by off-loading that decision-making responsibility to the
software. A project manager is first and formost a MANAGER, a
decsion-maker, not just a clerk inputting data into a computer and
following
its dictates.

4. Resource leveling merely attempts to create one of many possible
solutions. MS Project has no means to create the OPTIMUM solution, or
even a
few different possible solutions. If I want to optimize the
solution
to
maximize the number of nails I have left, MS Project can't do it.
It
can't
even optimize money savings. I want tools that can optimize any
quantity
in
the program, such as finding a way to give a particular worker the most
time
off, conserve a particular material, make the most profit.

It doesn't do that because like all other PM software I'm aware of, it is
a
work scheduling program - period. IT IS NOT AN ACCOUNTING PROGRAM!
IT
IS
NOT A MANAGEMENT EXPERT SYSTEM! IT IS NOT A STRATEGIC PLANNING
SYSTEM!
All
of those things are your job, not the software's. Only you know how many
nails are required to make a birdhouse. Project will tell you how
many
you
need if you need to make 100 birdhouses but you have to tell it how many
are
needed for 1.

Resource leveling is not resource optimizin g. It does one thing and one
thing only - resoolve scheduling conflicts. I have Julie scheduled to
spend
8 hours on Monday painting birdhouses and I've also scheduled her to
spend
8
hours on Monday varnishing perches, two mutually exclusive tasks. She's
scheduled somehow to magically achieve 16 man-hours of work during the
course of an 8-hour workday, an impossiblity. She can't be two places at
once. Resource leveling will move one of those tasks to Tuesday assuming
she's free. period. That's all it does. Anything else is your
responsibility because anything else requires either a personnel decision
or
a strategic decision only a human manager can make.


Because the projectsâ?T end date isnâ?Tt always what matters most.

5. Let's say I make wedding cakes. There are three tasks I need
done
before
I can make a cake, and EACH TASK MAKES MATERIALS USED IN LATER
TASKS.
The
cake layers must be baked, the frosting must be whipped together,
and
the
bride&groom cake topper ornament must be painted. At least some of
these
materials must be created before the "final cake assembly" task
could
begin.
But just as soon as these material producing tasks have made some
items,
final cake assembly can begin. AND, the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? can
continue
until the ingredients are used up (when the quantity of any one of the
ingredients reaches 0 on the material resources list.) The â?ofinal
cake
assemblyâ? TASK would not be associated with the â?obake layersâ?
task,
the â?owhip
frostingâ? task, or the â?opaint figurines taskâ?, it would begin
whenever there
were enough materials available to assemble a cake. If MS Project
worked
right, I could design the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task so that it
only
begins
when thereâ?Ts enough material to make 5 cakes. And then the â?ofinal
cake
assemblyâ? task would end when one of the three ingredient
materials
runs
out.
Letâ?Ts say youâ?Tve got 40 cake layers, 5 whipped frostings, and zero
cake
topper-figurines left. The â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task would
stop
because you
have no cake toppers left. If MS Project worked right, I could also
specify
that the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ? task must stop after making 8
finished
cakes,
even if thereâ?Ts more than enough materials to make additional
finished
cakes.


In MS Project, you can't simulate this, because project has no way
of
making
a material resource become available as the result of a task
completion.
And, MS Project can't make a task (like the final cake assembly) start
just
as soon as all the necessary material resources become available. And,
Project canâ?Tt automatically make a task end after producing quantity
X
material resources.

MS Project is not a production management application, it is a project
management application. Projects are defined as time-limited undertaking
swith observable and discrete start and end points resulting in a unique,
observable, and quantifiable deliverable. MS Project's role in that
is
to
schedule the work required to make it happen and estimate the direct
costs
involved. Everything else that needs to be done to make it happen
lies
outside its universe.


These production-assembly problems occur all the time in project
management,
but MS Project has no means to describe them, let alone find the
best
solution.

6. Project can't simulate the availability of material from suppliers.
Let's suppose I own a juice press because I make orange juice, apple
juice
and grapefruit juice for a living. I may have several different
suppliers
of
oranges, apples, and grapefruits. Each supplier may produce any
combination
of these fruits at any given time of the year. Sometimes no
supplier
has
any
fruit for sale, sometimes all my suppliers have the same fruit for sale
all
at once. And of course, each supplier charges a different price
than
the
other suppliers, for the same fruit, at the same time. If I put a task
in
MS
Project, "Press some orange juice", it could only occur when oranges
are
available from suppliers. If I have a task to "Press 500 gallons of
orange-grapefruit citrus blend juice" with a price constraint of $3.89
per
gallon, it can only happen when both oranges AND grapefruit
(material
resources in Project) are available. AND, the cost constraint of
the
task
can ONLY be met if the supplier's price combinations work out. MS
Project
can't cope with this, it can only make one resource calendar for one
material, not for multiple suppliers. But again, this is a problem
that
occurs constantly in real-world project management.

Again, you're expecting it to do the managing for you, not merely crunch
data while you do the managing. It don't do that, and Heaven help us if
any
software were to try.

Paint this on your bathroom mirror so you see it every day - "MS Project
is
schedule planning and cost estimating software. IT IS NOT financial
modeling, planning, or management software!" It tells you nothing about
what strategy you should adopt in order to meet your business objectives.
It only deals with tactical planning.

No software is a one-application-does-it-all type of beast. The scenario
you're describing above is a classic case of numerical modeling which is
what Excel excels at..