Dealing with Overallocations for Certain projects in Project Server 2003

[Roy]

Normally a project manager can fairly easily deal with the
overallocations in desktop versions of Project, but dealing with
overallocations in Project Server 2003 is more complicated. Several
questions arise:

1. As a project manager how can I see the overallocations that exist
in MY projects only. I just want to know if the resource is
overallocated in my set of projects, not all projects. (I.e. In the
Resource Sheet or some similar view the resources who are
overallocated only in my projects, should be the color red.)
2. Also I want to be able to manually or through leveling overcome the
overallocation of these resources, which would then clear the
overallocation (i.e. not show the resource the color red)in MY view of
the resources in those projects, even if that resource is still
overallocated in someone else's project.

I may be wrong but I believe this is difficult to do.

3. Also there is the issue that if as a project manager I do resolve
the overallocations of the resources as they relate just to my
projects, that resolution could impact other project manager's
projects!

It would seem that a resource manager would be necessary, who would
see the overallocations amongst many projects across multiple project
managers in some view, would then need to sit down with all of the
project managers and work together to come up with a solution that
enables each project manager to resolve their own sets of
overallocations in a way that doesn't harm another project manager's
projects, or is at least agreeable to others.

Does Microsoft have some sort of white paper to address this
overallocation issue in Project Server as I have addressed it above. I
see this as a limitation of the program, unless we can come up with a
valid approach.

Looking forward to some constructive answers to each of these three
questions.

Thanks in advance.

Roy

 

[Dale Howard]

Roy --

Let me take a brief stab at the issues you present:

1. If you are logged into Project Server, there is no way to see only
overallocations that exist in your projects. The nature of an enterprise
environment is to show the overallocation of resources across the entire
portfolio of projects. If you have a resource scheduled to work full-time
on two 5-day tasks from January 6-10, 2004 and I have the same resource
booked to work full-time on two 5-day tasks during the same time period,
then why would you want to level the overallocations in only your projects?
If you truly work in a "shared resource" environment, I believe you should
be concerned about overallocations across all projects in the portfolio.

2. You can level the overallocations in only your projects by opening only
your projects and then leveling the overallocations, either manually or by
using the software's built-in leveling capabilities. Doing so will level
the overallocations in your projects but will not handle the overallocations
in other people's projects.

3. Leveling only your own projects is a temporary solution at best, since
your solution to the resource bottleneck can adversely impact multiple other
projects in the portfolio, including projects in which no overallocation
existed before you leveled your projects. Yes, a resource manager could
help in situations like these when resources are overallocated across
projects owned by multiple project managers. Someone who serves as a
portfolio manager could also serve as the "referee" to decide which projects
are a higher priority and should have access to the scarce resources first.

Hope these answers help.