dependencies between tasks

[Carolyn in Fredericton NB]

Hello
My interpretation of setting up dependencies between tasks was to only link
those that were truly dependent; e.g., Task B can only start once Task A is
done. If you have 2 tasks, C and D, that represent work (example, code
procedure 1 and code procedure 2) that are not dependent on each other, but
are tasks to which you would likely assign the same resource, you should not
link them, but rather assign the resource to both, and use resource levelling
to take care of the overallocation. I know that often people will assign
dependencies between tasks that are not "true" dependencies to prevent a
resource from being overallocated, but if circumstances arose whereby you
could assign a second Resource to Task D, it would schedule a start date to
Task D based on the first resource finishing Task C, rather than scheduling
Task D to start as soon as possible. Basically, i am trying to only link
tasks that are really only truly dependent on each other, and using resource
levelling to handle the scheduling.
Am I off base?

 

[Jim Aksel]

I would say you are exactly right on.
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[Carolyn in Fredericton NB]

I know that there are many "horror stories" on using resource levelling, but
I expect that many unexpected outcomes can be circumvented through using the
levelling properly. Essentially, in my case, I have a group of tasks that
aren't dependent on each other, can have one or many possible resources
assigned, and there's really not one task that has priority over another
(essentially, a whole lot of JAVA coding separated into functional areas).
What I have done is make a resource type of (example) Dev-Stream 1 where I
have indicated 200% capacity as there are 2 developers. I should be able to
assign Dev-stream1 to multiple tasks at 200% and use resource levelling to
schedule the times according to the availability in Dev-Stream1's calendar,
correct?
Thanks

 

[Jim Aksel]

Correct. You can read more about Resource Leveling in the help as you can
assign different priorities to tasks and that will change how the leveling
takes place.


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Jim Aksel, MVP

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[Carolyn in Fredericton NB]

Thanks Jim

--
Carolyn
PM

Correct. You can read more about Resource Leveling in the help as you can
assign different priorities to tasks and that will change how the leveling
takes place.


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If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Carolyn in Fredericton NB]

Trevor
I am just trying to schedule now, and use Project to optimize the resources.
I don't know who will be assigned to tasks several releases out. For example,
I may have a group of numerous tasks with varying work effort; by assigning a
"group" of people with comparable skills, I am thinking (and maybe I am not
doing this the best way), that project will figure out how long it should
take, as opposed to assigning individual resources to tasks, finding out I
have assigned resource 1 60 hours, resource 2 200 hours and resource 3 300
hours, and have under and/or over allocated individual resources, and
levelling those resources across their individually assigned tasks may not
end up being the most efficient assignment. I would expect that as that
release approaches, we owuld sub actual names for generic