Assigning a team of changing availability to a project task

[sonia_hc]

Hi,

I have a team of 5 engineers who will work on a project. I have a list of
tasks, their dependencies and work required to finish each task. The tasks'
durations are effort based. I don't know who will be working on which task.
I'm assuming that each engineer has the same skills and can work on each of
the tasks. I know when each engineer is taking days off in the project
period. I would like to enter available information to MS Project and see the
feasible timeline for completing the project.

I see 2 different ways to do it, but both of them introduce some problems.

1). I could assign tasks to a team and specify the team's availability
over different periods of time. The issue here is that I also have to specify
number of units the resource will work on each task. If I don't specify it,
MS Project is going to assume that it's 100% and if there are less than 5
tasks left and 5 engineers available to work the team will be underallocated.
If specify the units as 500%, MS Project is going to assume that 5 engineers
are needed make any progress on the task and wouldn't schedule any work on
the days when some of the engineers are taking days off.

2). I could assign a list of reources to each task. I could maintain the
engineers' days off and availability in the seperate calendars. In this case
MS project is going to assume that each engineer is required to work the same
number of hours on each task. If the team is working on the last task and one
of the engineers in the team is not available, MS project would schedule this
last task to complete after the engineer comes back from vacation and finish
his tasks instead of using the other resources which are available during his
absence.

Is there a way to solve my problem?

 

[Ammar Al-Saket]

Hi,

Create generic resource called e.g. “Engineers†at 500% unit and deduct
from the 500% the total percentage of anticipated time that engineers are
off, for example if each one of the engineers takes 2 days/month off, in
other words, 2 days off per 20 working days then you consider his/her
availability is 90%, therefore, the generic resource “Engineersâ€
availability will be only 450% and not 500% then you assign generic resource
with 450% availability for all tasks without consideration to off time
because it was already deducted.

I hope that may solve your problem.

Ammar Al-Saket

 

[sonia_hc]

Thanks Ammar,

Your idea is pretty good, but I would have to calculate upfront how many
days the team needs to complete the project and it's what I want MS Project
to do based on the information I'm providing.

 

[Ammar Al-Saket]

Sonia_hc

After you set up the project calendar and select Task Type for each task,
there are three variables determine each task's finish date and ultimately,
project's finish date, variables are:
Worktotal "hours" needed to finish a task)
Duration: (Start and Finish dates), and
Resource Availability: (%)

Now what I want to say is that the Planner must make choice on TWO variables
then the software will calculate the third variable, as Trevor said earlier
on, the software doesn't do what the Planner must do.

Hope that helps

Ammar Al-Saket