D
Dave R
Would anyone know how to set up a project as a 13 day fortnight? This is
particularly helpful with our roster at the moment
particularly helpful with our roster at the moment
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
Hmmmm - first time I've run into a need to schedule projects in the FFF
system of units.
Unit of time - Fortnight
Unit of weight - Firkin
Unit of length - Furlong
LOL
Seriously, can you clarify what you mean by your post? First of all a
fortnight is 14 days. But that aside, you schedule projects based on the
work that needs to be done, not the time you've been allowed to do it.
There's no such thing as a week project or a month project or a fortnight
project or whatever. What we do have is "We need to build a house. It will
take 8000 man-hours of labour to produce the required output deliverable.
Our people work 8 hours a day and we have 15 people. This set of tasks have
to occur in this sequence while these other tasks can happen in any order.
What is the shortest time period that will be required for us to produce the
deliverable?"
system of units.
Unit of time - Fortnight
Unit of weight - Firkin
Unit of length - Furlong
LOL
Seriously, can you clarify what you mean by your post? First of all a
fortnight is 14 days. But that aside, you schedule projects based on the
work that needs to be done, not the time you've been allowed to do it.
There's no such thing as a week project or a month project or a fortnight
project or whatever. What we do have is "We need to build a house. It will
take 8000 man-hours of labour to produce the required output deliverable.
Our people work 8 hours a day and we have 15 people. This set of tasks have
to occur in this sequence while these other tasks can happen in any order.
What is the shortest time period that will be required for us to produce the
deliverable?"
D
Dave R
Hi Steve, thanks for your response, I suppose I should've been a little
clearer. Currently the contractors we employ are working a 23 day on, 5 day
off schedule, however the Mines Regulations state that you are not able to
work more than 14 days straight. Hence we are implementing a 13 day
fortnight, where the contractors work from Monday through to the following
Sat, have Sunday off, then work the remainder 10 days. So I was actually
talking about the Working Time setup. However, thinking about it, we're
always going to have people working (overlapping shifts) so in effect it will
be a 7-day working week. The only issue would have been if I was going to
link individuals to certain tasks, then I would need to show a 13 day working
fortnight, however I no longer need to do this so I'll stick with a 7-day
week. Thanks anyway
clearer. Currently the contractors we employ are working a 23 day on, 5 day
off schedule, however the Mines Regulations state that you are not able to
work more than 14 days straight. Hence we are implementing a 13 day
fortnight, where the contractors work from Monday through to the following
Sat, have Sunday off, then work the remainder 10 days. So I was actually
talking about the Working Time setup. However, thinking about it, we're
always going to have people working (overlapping shifts) so in effect it will
be a 7-day working week. The only issue would have been if I was going to
link individuals to certain tasks, then I would need to show a 13 day working
fortnight, however I no longer need to do this so I'll stick with a 7-day
week. Thanks anyway
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
One thing to keep in mind - IMHO the Project Calendar should not describe
the total working hours of the firm. Rather, it describes the working hours
of a generic or typical resource. While companies often work 24/7
individual workers don't. And in a project's task breakdown, the work
should be decomposed down to the level of a task describing the work
performed by ONE resource, that being either a single individual worker or
several workers working as a team. So the calendar that controls its
scheduling when resources have not yet been assigned (or won't be assigned
by us such as when we don't care who a contractor actually sends to do the
work) should at least approximate the working hours of the resource most
likely to actually do the work. In other words, the Project Calendar should
descibe the hours during the day when the work being done on a single
activity by a single worker will take place.
Consider - We operate 24 hours a day and our workers work 8 hour shifts,
either day shift (Joe) 8-5, swing shift (Bill) 3-mid, or graveyard shift
(Fred) 11pm-8am. I have a task that starts Mon at 8am and requires 40 hours
of work to do. If I use the 24/7 calendar and enter that task, before
assigning resources it shows starting Mon 8am and finishing Tue at midnight.
But if I assign only Joe, which is the normal situation, as we originally
planned on - instead it's suddenly jumps out 3 days and it doesn't finish
until Fri at 5pm. That's HUGE difference between what it appeared it would
be and what it will turn out to actually be. OTOH, if we use the Standard
default calendar, we don't have that problem It would show starting at 8am
Mon and ending 5pm Fri and when we assign Joe it doesn't change. Even if we
use one of the guys on one of the other shifts I switch in the task timing
isn't so dramatic - assigning Bill will shift the task to Mon 3pm to Fri
midnight, not a dramatic difference and just what we'd expect anyway. And
if we DO assign it to to the guys on all three shifts so it is a task that
runs continuously, it will contract as we would expect - starting Mon at 8
with Joe working on it till 5, Bill coming on board at 3 joining Joe and
working until midnight, Fred coming in at 11 and joining Bill and working on
it until 8, Joe taking over again at 8am Tue and likewise Bill joining him
again Tue at 3 and ultimately finishing at midnight Tues with Joe doing a
total of 16 hours work, Bill also doing 16, and Fred doing 8. The duration
would still show 5 days because a "day" actually corresponds to a shift and
Mon 8am to Tue midnight means the task extends over 5 work shifts.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
the total working hours of the firm. Rather, it describes the working hours
of a generic or typical resource. While companies often work 24/7
individual workers don't. And in a project's task breakdown, the work
should be decomposed down to the level of a task describing the work
performed by ONE resource, that being either a single individual worker or
several workers working as a team. So the calendar that controls its
scheduling when resources have not yet been assigned (or won't be assigned
by us such as when we don't care who a contractor actually sends to do the
work) should at least approximate the working hours of the resource most
likely to actually do the work. In other words, the Project Calendar should
descibe the hours during the day when the work being done on a single
activity by a single worker will take place.
Consider - We operate 24 hours a day and our workers work 8 hour shifts,
either day shift (Joe) 8-5, swing shift (Bill) 3-mid, or graveyard shift
(Fred) 11pm-8am. I have a task that starts Mon at 8am and requires 40 hours
of work to do. If I use the 24/7 calendar and enter that task, before
assigning resources it shows starting Mon 8am and finishing Tue at midnight.
But if I assign only Joe, which is the normal situation, as we originally
planned on - instead it's suddenly jumps out 3 days and it doesn't finish
until Fri at 5pm. That's HUGE difference between what it appeared it would
be and what it will turn out to actually be. OTOH, if we use the Standard
default calendar, we don't have that problem It would show starting at 8am
Mon and ending 5pm Fri and when we assign Joe it doesn't change. Even if we
use one of the guys on one of the other shifts I switch in the task timing
isn't so dramatic - assigning Bill will shift the task to Mon 3pm to Fri
midnight, not a dramatic difference and just what we'd expect anyway. And
if we DO assign it to to the guys on all three shifts so it is a task that
runs continuously, it will contract as we would expect - starting Mon at 8
with Joe working on it till 5, Bill coming on board at 3 joining Joe and
working until midnight, Fred coming in at 11 and joining Bill and working on
it until 8, Joe taking over again at 8am Tue and likewise Bill joining him
again Tue at 3 and ultimately finishing at midnight Tues with Joe doing a
total of 16 hours work, Bill also doing 16, and Fred doing 8. The duration
would still show 5 days because a "day" actually corresponds to a shift and
Mon 8am to Tue midnight means the task extends over 5 work shifts.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
J
Jan De Messemaeker
Hi Steve,
A very viable alternative is for theh Project Calendar to represent the
company's working times and for another base calendar to be the base of
resource calendars (base calendar being a default column in the Resource
sheet).
Greetings,
A very viable alternative is for theh Project Calendar to represent the
company's working times and for another base calendar to be the base of
resource calendars (base calendar being a default column in the Resource
sheet).
Greetings,
S
Steve House [Project MVP]
I agree, sort of. My only problem with using the 24 hour calendar as the
Project Calendar is the extreme difference in start and finish dates you see
for tasks before they are assigned to resources versus the start and finish
of the same tasks or tasks with the same duration after they are assigned to
resources. A 24 hour duration task on the 24 hour calendar that start Mon
at 8am will end Tues at 8am. But that same task after being assigned its
resource will end Wed at 5pm. That's a huge difference and IMHO can easily
lead to plans that are extremely misleading when tasks with and tasks
without resources are mixed in the same schedule. I feel one should always
compare apples to apples. Even if we are not actuall;y assigning the
resources to tasks ourselves, they still are going to be worked by somebody
and that somebody most definitely does not work 24/7. Even if the
"resource" is a contractor and we're not worried about how he schedules his
employees, showing the tasks on the 24 hour calendar is very likely to show
them ending far earlier in the project than they really are going to, or
viewed another way, they will show requiring far less elapsed time than they
actually are going to out there in the real world. My mantra for scheduling
is "first and formost, never create illusions that will lead you to think
the plan is more efficient than it really is." If I mix the 24 hour
calendar with others in the plan I suggest going the opposite way, using a
"typical workday" calendar for the project calendar and reserving the 24/7
calendar for those things like machine resources, automated tests, etc, that
need to be scheduled but don't require a human presence to be accomplished
and can truly progress at any hour of the day or night even when there's no
one there.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
Project Calendar is the extreme difference in start and finish dates you see
for tasks before they are assigned to resources versus the start and finish
of the same tasks or tasks with the same duration after they are assigned to
resources. A 24 hour duration task on the 24 hour calendar that start Mon
at 8am will end Tues at 8am. But that same task after being assigned its
resource will end Wed at 5pm. That's a huge difference and IMHO can easily
lead to plans that are extremely misleading when tasks with and tasks
without resources are mixed in the same schedule. I feel one should always
compare apples to apples. Even if we are not actuall;y assigning the
resources to tasks ourselves, they still are going to be worked by somebody
and that somebody most definitely does not work 24/7. Even if the
"resource" is a contractor and we're not worried about how he schedules his
employees, showing the tasks on the 24 hour calendar is very likely to show
them ending far earlier in the project than they really are going to, or
viewed another way, they will show requiring far less elapsed time than they
actually are going to out there in the real world. My mantra for scheduling
is "first and formost, never create illusions that will lead you to think
the plan is more efficient than it really is." If I mix the 24 hour
calendar with others in the plan I suggest going the opposite way, using a
"typical workday" calendar for the project calendar and reserving the 24/7
calendar for those things like machine resources, automated tests, etc, that
need to be scheduled but don't require a human presence to be accomplished
and can truly progress at any hour of the day or night even when there's no
one there.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs