Changing Max Units have no effect

[tshad]

In Project 2003, I have a project I created and have 3 resources.

In the duration of a task I have set it as 4 days.

For my resources:

Developers 200% Max Units ( I assume this means equivalent to 2
developers)
Developer1 100% Max Units
Developer2 100% Max Units

When I assigned "Developers" to the task, the Duration didn't change. If I
change the Max Units of "Developers" to 400%, the tasks Durations still
doesn't change.

But if I add Developer1 to the resource (Developers,Developer1), the tasks
Duration changes to 2 Days (and the ending date changes as expected).

If I now add Developer2 to the task (Developers,Developer1,Develop2), the
duration changes to 1.33 Days (with the ending date changing as expected).

If I double click on the task, it shows all 3 tasks as 100% as if they are
equivalent. But isn't "Developers" the equivalent of 4 people?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Jim Aksel]

There is a relationship between units, work, and duration

work=units%xduration
Project allows you to fix work, duration or units. I have a white paper on
the topic. Hit me at jeaksel at yahoo dot com and I will send it to you

Jim

 

[Dave]

Are you sure you get the behaviour you describe? For fixed units or
fixed work tasks the duration halves as I increas the developers level
of effort from 200% to 400%.

How are you assigning these resources? If you are using the assign
resources dialogue box, move the focus away from the developers line or
close it before reviewing the effect of your changes.

Dave

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Indeed, Max Uniyts do not change anything.
They only p^lay a part on tresoruce leveling.
It is the task's assignment units that influence duration.
Hope this helps

 

[tshad]

Hi,

Indeed, Max Uniyts do not change anything.
They only p^lay a part on tresoruce leveling.
It is the task's assignment units that influence duration.
Hope this helps

That does seem to be the case.

But I want to set up a resource that does the work of 2 or more people to
temporarily assign to my tasks (developers1 for 100%, developers2 for 200%
etc) and then later actually assign people to the job. If I do it this way,
the Duration will be halved when I add the resources. Is there a way to set
it up this way so that the actual leveling will work the same way as the
actual display?

Is there a way to assign the resource and have it grab the resource units
from the Resource Sheet?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I must say some of your text is not very clear to me ("actual leveling
working the same as actual display")
Let me first set some details straght: when we discuss bvehaviour of a
software it is always easier to use the software's own terminology.
Absolutely nothing in your questions refers to project's "leveling" which
is the function that reschedules tasks in order to avoid overallocations.
Display never works, it merely displays as the word says.

This being said, I recognize two questions, let's take them in turn.

First, can you have Project automatically assign the max units of a resource
when you assign it to a task?
When you assign a resource to a task and you do not specify the assignment
units, Project will take 100% or the max units, whichever is lower.
After this, the assignment units will completely ignore Max Units. No
setting, just that. Ignore.

How duration reacts to changing assignment units is a science of its own,
way too long to explain it here: there will be no alternative to studying
I'm afraid; Look for help on Task Type and ionf Effort Drriven.

Concretely if you do not want duration to change when you change an
assignment, put the task type to fixed duration and effort driven to off.

Hope this helps,

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi tshad,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #10 on Multiple Resource Assignments, at this
site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi tshad,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #10 on Multiple Resource Assignments, at this
site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House]

Do you have two developers or four? The way you have described it in your
post, you have a total of four developers available to your project, two of
which you're going to lump together into an undifferentiated group resource
named "Developers" and two more that you are going to track as individuals.
Note that Project allows you to have both multiperson resources like your
"Developers" and individual resources such as 'Developer1' but anyone listed
as an individual can not also be a member of the multiperson resource.

As others have noted, changing the Max Units in the resource sheet does not
change any assignments that have already been made. It only sets the total
assignment level at any given time that will be considered 'overallocated'
but it's still up to you to visit each one and resolve the overbookings or
to run resource leveling to fix them (if leveling CAN fix them, that is.)

Take a look at the Help references regarding effort driven and non-effort
deriven scheduling. The order you do things matters - starting with a task
that has no resources, assigning two people in one operation won't cause the
duration to change. But if you assign them one after the other in two
operations and the task is effort driven, the duration WILL change. IF it's
non-effort driven and you assign them one after the other, the duration
WON'T change.

 

[tshad]

Do you have two developers or four? The way you have described it in your
post, you have a total of four developers available to your project, two
of which you're going to lump together into an undifferentiated group
resource named "Developers" and two more that you are going to track as
individuals. Note that Project allows you to have both multiperson
resources like your "Developers" and individual resources such as
'Developer1' but anyone listed as an individual can not also be a member
of the multiperson resource.

Actually, that was just a test. I am the only developer. We will be hiring
some new programmers in the future. We do some outsourcing so I will be
using Project for this.

This is why I am not worried about Start Dates except to set up the duration
of the Projects. Soon I will but for now I just want to have a way to track
the progress of the various projects I am involved in.

As others have noted, changing the Max Units in the resource sheet does
not change any assignments that have already been made. It only sets the
total assignment level at any given time that will be considered
'overallocated' but it's still up to you to visit each one and resolve the
overbookings or to run resource leveling to fix them (if leveling CAN fix
them, that is.)

Take a look at the Help references regarding effort driven and non-effort
deriven scheduling. The order you do things matters - starting with a
task that has no resources, assigning two people in one operation won't
cause the duration to change. But if you assign them one after the other
in two operations and the task is effort driven, the duration WILL change.
IF it's non-effort driven and you assign them one after the other, the
duration WON'T change.

I do need to understand scheduling better. I plan on looking at Mikes
articles to get a better handle on it. I am sure you are all correct on the
Dates and Duration but at the moment I want to keep it as simple as possible
and then slowly work into the more complicated aspects of Project
management.

I have used project in the past for various projects as well as MacProject
(a loooonnngggg time ago) but in the same way as I am now.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

In Project 2003, I have a project I created and have 3 resources.

In the duration of a task I have set it as 4 days.

For my resources:

Developers 200% Max Units ( I assume this means equivalent to 2
developers)
Developer1 100% Max Units
Developer2 100% Max Units

When I assigned "Developers" to the task, the Duration didn't change. If
I change the Max Units of "Developers" to 400%, the tasks Durations still
doesn't change.

But if I add Developer1 to the resource (Developers,Developer1), the
tasks Duration changes to 2 Days (and the ending date changes as
expected).

If I now add Developer2 to the task (Developers,Developer1,Develop2), the
duration changes to 1.33 Days (with the ending date changing as
expected).

If I double click on the task, it shows all 3 tasks as 100% as if they
are equivalent. But isn't "Developers" the equivalent of 4 people?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Steve House]

Well, since 'progress' in a schedule is by definition is a measure of 'How
much have I done?' by such-and-such a date compared to "How much was I
supposed to do?' by that same date, it seems impossible to me to measure
progress or even to think meaningfully about it without being concerned
about task start (and end) dates. If all you look at is planned duration
and actual duration, any 'progress' calculation you make is just a
re-statment of the input condititions - ie "Our project lasts 100 days and
is 50% complete' means we have worked on it 50 days regardless of how well
you're progressing and gives no indication whatsoever about whether you're
going to finish on-time or not.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Do you have two developers or four? The way you have described it in
your post, you have a total of four developers available to your project,
two of which you're going to lump together into an undifferentiated group
resource named "Developers" and two more that you are going to track as
individuals. Note that Project allows you to have both multiperson
resources like your "Developers" and individual resources such as
'Developer1' but anyone listed as an individual can not also be a member
of the multiperson resource.

Actually, that was just a test. I am the only developer. We will be
hiring some new programmers in the future. We do some outsourcing so I
will be using Project for this.

This is why I am not worried about Start Dates except to set up the
duration of the Projects. Soon I will but for now I just want to have a
way to track the progress of the various projects I am involved in.

As others have noted, changing the Max Units in the resource sheet does
not change any assignments that have already been made. It only sets the
total assignment level at any given time that will be considered
'overallocated' but it's still up to you to visit each one and resolve
the overbookings or to run resource leveling to fix them (if leveling CAN
fix them, that is.)

Take a look at the Help references regarding effort driven and non-effort
deriven scheduling. The order you do things matters - starting with a
task that has no resources, assigning two people in one operation won't
cause the duration to change. But if you assign them one after the other
in two operations and the task is effort driven, the duration WILL
change. IF it's non-effort driven and you assign them one after the
other, the duration WON'T change.

I do need to understand scheduling better. I plan on looking at Mikes
articles to get a better handle on it. I am sure you are all correct on
the Dates and Duration but at the moment I want to keep it as simple as
possible and then slowly work into the more complicated aspects of Project
management.

I have used project in the past for various projects as well as MacProject
(a loooonnngggg time ago) but in the same way as I am now.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

In Project 2003, I have a project I created and have 3 resources.

In the duration of a task I have set it as 4 days.

For my resources:

Developers 200% Max Units ( I assume this means equivalent to 2
developers)
Developer1 100% Max Units
Developer2 100% Max Units

When I assigned "Developers" to the task, the Duration didn't change.
If I change the Max Units of "Developers" to 400%, the tasks Durations
still doesn't change.

But if I add Developer1 to the resource (Developers,Developer1), the
tasks Duration changes to 2 Days (and the ending date changes as
expected).

If I now add Developer2 to the task (Developers,Developer1,Develop2),
the duration changes to 1.33 Days (with the ending date changing as
expected).

If I double click on the task, it shows all 3 tasks as 100% as if they
are equivalent. But isn't "Developers" the equivalent of 4 people?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[tshad]

Well, since 'progress' in a schedule is by definition is a measure of 'How
much have I done?' by such-and-such a date compared to "How much was I
supposed to do?' by that same date, it seems impossible to me to measure
progress or even to think meaningfully about it without being concerned
about task start (and end) dates. If all you look at is planned duration
and actual duration, any 'progress' calculation you make is just a
re-statment of the input condititions - ie "Our project lasts 100 days and
is 50% complete' means we have worked on it 50 days regardless of how well
you're progressing and gives no indication whatsoever about whether you're
going to finish on-time or not.

But that is my point.

There is no "Finish on-time" in my scenarios. Just watching the progress of
the tasks. By progress, I don't mean how much of the 3 days (36 days)
allocated to the task is done. Just that it is about 50% done or 80% done -
approximately.

I know this is not the way projects are normally done. But I am not working
on a project per se where you need to worry about costs or how many hours of
a particular resource is getting used (I am it).

This will change in the future. But at the moment I am more interested in
being able to put together an idea of what a particular "project" is going
to look like without having to worry about exactly how many man-hours it is
going to take to complete the task - although I would like to get close.
But as I am not going to be tracking time with a timesheet, the actual is
really just a guess anyway. Just such that I can show the progress of each
project I am working on to get an idea of how to reset priorities and to
give my boss an idea of where we are at.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Do you have two developers or four? The way you have described it in
your post, you have a total of four developers available to your
project, two of which you're going to lump together into an
undifferentiated group resource named "Developers" and two more that you
are going to track as individuals. Note that Project allows you to have
both multiperson resources like your "Developers" and individual
resources such as 'Developer1' but anyone listed as an individual can
not also be a member of the multiperson resource.

Actually, that was just a test. I am the only developer. We will be
hiring some new programmers in the future. We do some outsourcing so I
will be using Project for this.

This is why I am not worried about Start Dates except to set up the
duration of the Projects. Soon I will but for now I just want to have a
way to track the progress of the various projects I am involved in.

As others have noted, changing the Max Units in the resource sheet does
not change any assignments that have already been made. It only sets
the total assignment level at any given time that will be considered
'overallocated' but it's still up to you to visit each one and resolve
the overbookings or to run resource leveling to fix them (if leveling
CAN fix them, that is.)

Take a look at the Help references regarding effort driven and
non-effort deriven scheduling. The order you do things matters -
starting with a task that has no resources, assigning two people in one
operation won't cause the duration to change. But if you assign them
one after the other in two operations and the task is effort driven, the
duration WILL change. IF it's non-effort driven and you assign them one
after the other, the duration WON'T change.

I do need to understand scheduling better. I plan on looking at Mikes
articles to get a better handle on it. I am sure you are all correct on
the Dates and Duration but at the moment I want to keep it as simple as
possible and then slowly work into the more complicated aspects of
Project management.

I have used project in the past for various projects as well as
MacProject (a loooonnngggg time ago) but in the same way as I am now.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



In Project 2003, I have a project I created and have 3 resources.

In the duration of a task I have set it as 4 days.

For my resources:

Developers 200% Max Units ( I assume this means equivalent to 2
developers)
Developer1 100% Max Units
Developer2 100% Max Units

When I assigned "Developers" to the task, the Duration didn't change.
If I change the Max Units of "Developers" to 400%, the tasks Durations
still doesn't change.

But if I add Developer1 to the resource (Developers,Developer1), the
tasks Duration changes to 2 Days (and the ending date changes as
expected).

If I now add Developer2 to the task (Developers,Developer1,Develop2),
the duration changes to 1.33 Days (with the ending date changing as
expected).

If I double click on the task, it shows all 3 tasks as 100% as if they
are equivalent. But isn't "Developers" the equivalent of 4 people?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Steve House]

You're missing the point. "% Complete" is a measure of the number of days
worked as of the status date versus the total number of days work was
planned. If your project was to take 100 days and as of the 50th day you
have actually put in 50 days, you are 50% complete. But if by the 50th day
you have actually only worked for 25 days, the other 25 days being
unexpectedly tied up doing something else, you are only 25% complete. For
those numbers to make any sense, you have to know both the days on which
work was supposed to take place and the days on which work actually did take
place, as well as the 'as-of' date at which you are making the evaluation.
Actual Start and Finish dates versus planned will matter and there's really
no escaping it. Otherwise how would you know "As of today we were supposed
to have put in 37 days performing work but we've only done 30."

Note that there is a distinction between % Complete (measures duration), %
Work Complete (measures effort), and % Physical Complete (measures
productivity). The can and often are totally different numbers at any given
point in the project - % Complete and % Work Complete especially will only
be equal if certain very specific conditions are met.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Well, since 'progress' in a schedule is by definition is a measure of
'How much have I done?' by such-and-such a date compared to "How much was
I supposed to do?' by that same date, it seems impossible to me to
measure progress or even to think meaningfully about it without being
concerned about task start (and end) dates. If all you look at is
planned duration and actual duration, any 'progress' calculation you make
is just a re-statment of the input condititions - ie "Our project lasts
100 days and is 50% complete' means we have worked on it 50 days
regardless of how well you're progressing and gives no indication
whatsoever about whether you're going to finish on-time or not.

But that is my point.

There is no "Finish on-time" in my scenarios. Just watching the progress
of the tasks. By progress, I don't mean how much of the 3 days (36 days)
allocated to the task is done. Just that it is about 50% done or 80%
done - approximately.

I know this is not the way projects are normally done. But I am not
working on a project per se where you need to worry about costs or how
many hours of a particular resource is getting used (I am it).

This will change in the future. But at the moment I am more interested in
being able to put together an idea of what a particular "project" is going
to look like without having to worry about exactly how many man-hours it
is going to take to complete the task - although I would like to get
close. But as I am not going to be tracking time with a timesheet, the
actual is really just a guess anyway. Just such that I can show the
progress of each project I am working on to get an idea of how to reset
priorities and to give my boss an idea of where we are at.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Do you have two developers or four? The way you have described it in
your post, you have a total of four developers available to your
project, two of which you're going to lump together into an
undifferentiated group resource named "Developers" and two more that
you are going to track as individuals. Note that Project allows you to
have both multiperson resources like your "Developers" and individual
resources such as 'Developer1' but anyone listed as an individual can
not also be a member of the multiperson resource.

Actually, that was just a test. I am the only developer. We will be
hiring some new programmers in the future. We do some outsourcing so I
will be using Project for this.

This is why I am not worried about Start Dates except to set up the
duration of the Projects. Soon I will but for now I just want to have a
way to track the progress of the various projects I am involved in.

As others have noted, changing the Max Units in the resource sheet does
not change any assignments that have already been made. It only sets
the total assignment level at any given time that will be considered
'overallocated' but it's still up to you to visit each one and resolve
the overbookings or to run resource leveling to fix them (if leveling
CAN fix them, that is.)

Take a look at the Help references regarding effort driven and
non-effort deriven scheduling. The order you do things matters -
starting with a task that has no resources, assigning two people in one
operation won't cause the duration to change. But if you assign them
one after the other in two operations and the task is effort driven,
the duration WILL change. IF it's non-effort driven and you assign them
one after the other, the duration WON'T change.

I do need to understand scheduling better. I plan on looking at Mikes
articles to get a better handle on it. I am sure you are all correct on
the Dates and Duration but at the moment I want to keep it as simple as
possible and then slowly work into the more complicated aspects of
Project management.

I have used project in the past for various projects as well as
MacProject (a loooonnngggg time ago) but in the same way as I am now.

Thanks,

Tom

--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



In Project 2003, I have a project I created and have 3 resources.

In the duration of a task I have set it as 4 days.

For my resources:

Developers 200% Max Units ( I assume this means equivalent to 2
developers)
Developer1 100% Max Units
Developer2 100% Max Units

When I assigned "Developers" to the task, the Duration didn't change.
If I change the Max Units of "Developers" to 400%, the tasks Durations
still doesn't change.

But if I add Developer1 to the resource (Developers,Developer1), the
tasks Duration changes to 2 Days (and the ending date changes as
expected).

If I now add Developer2 to the task (Developers,Developer1,Develop2),
the duration changes to 1.33 Days (with the ending date changing as
expected).

If I double click on the task, it shows all 3 tasks as 100% as if they
are equivalent. But isn't "Developers" the equivalent of 4 people?

Thanks,

Tom