R
ritpg
I used to use MS Project quite a bit but have become very rusty and
could use some help. I'm considered the "power user" where I work and
that is a joke. I'm trying to get back to where I was with the tool
and hopefully beyond.
First let me say that I believe that Project out of the box (with all
its default settings) tends to assume that its user is metrics based.
For example, if you schedule a task with one full time person and then
later add a person, Project will automatically decrease the task's
duration to one-half. This happens because Project computed an amount
of work based on my initial entries - say 40 hours based on one person
for a duration of 5 work days. When I added a person, the 40 hours of
work remained the same so to account for the doubling of resources,
Project halves the duration to 2.5 days.
This is great if your producing widgets and you know exactly how much
effort it takes to produce each widget. To me the truth is that many
(most?) users are not so metrics based and they want to have more
control over how Project calculates Cost. Over the years, I have run
into countless people who gave up on Project because what it does
automatically out of the box. I have often wondered if MS would have
sold more copies if they had instead assumed most users are not
metrics based and then focused on training users to turn on some of
the automatic processing and the users environment became more
sophisticated.
I typically try to turn the auto-processing off by setting all tasks
to Complete As Soon As Possible and Fixed Duration and turn Effort
Driven off. I arrived at this combination of settings empirically but
I won't swear that it always give me the desired behavior. If someone
has other thoughts on the subject, I'm all ears. I'm especially
interested in knowing what undesirable consequences there might be
with these settings. My goal is to be able to create dumb schedules
that calculate costs and observe task dependencies. I want Work to be
equal to the sum of the number of hours I assign to each person
assigned to the task regardless of when the people are assigned. For
example, if I initially assign one person full time to a 5 day task, I
want to see 40 hours of Work. If I then add a 2nd person half time, I
want to see 60 hours of Work and the duration unchanged.
I am currently maintaining a schedule with the settings listed above
and just completed its 3rd generation. It has suddenly(?) exhibited
strange behavior. For some reason, the schedule is not calculating
Work as described above. On one task, I have to schedule a person
182% to get 16 hours of Work over a 2 day duration. What could cause
this? I've re-created the schedule segment that is behaving this way
in a seprate file and I'm getting the results I would expect. Between
the 2 files, the resources, durations, start/end dates, dependencies
are identical.
Also, I've been under the impression that if I go into Tools/Options/
Schedule (I'm using Project 2003), and set the Default Task Type to
Fixed Duration and turn Effort Driven off and then click on the Set as
Default button, all future schedules created would assume these
settings. I'm finding that this is not the case. I guess all I am
affecting is the tasks created for that particular schedule. Is there
a way to permanently establish default settings for all future
schedules. I understand that schedules inherit the settings in effect
at the time they were created/updated. So if I were to receive a
schedule form someone else, its settings would be in effect. But I'm
talking about schedules created and maintained on my PC and nowhere
else. BTW, I just discovered that some tasks I added to the schedule
I'm maintaining have been set to Effort Driven. How could that happen
when I had set the default settings as described above?
I've also come to realize that if there are red figures on Resource
Usage display, any Work overages will not be included in the Cost
calculation. For example, if the hours for a person total to 40 for a
week but that person is scheduled to work 12 hours one of the days and
4 hours another, 4 hours of the 12 hour day will not be included in
the Cost. How does one work around this? I would want the Cost to be
based on the full 40 hours. Perhaps leveling for just the one week
period is the answer? I dont have much experience with leveling.
I've tried it a few times and never got the desired results. But that
was for the entire schedule - not just a segment.
I'm starting to think I should have posted a series of NG articles.
Sorry if I'm overwhelming the readers out there. Thanks so much for
any help you can provide.
could use some help. I'm considered the "power user" where I work and
that is a joke. I'm trying to get back to where I was with the tool
and hopefully beyond.
First let me say that I believe that Project out of the box (with all
its default settings) tends to assume that its user is metrics based.
For example, if you schedule a task with one full time person and then
later add a person, Project will automatically decrease the task's
duration to one-half. This happens because Project computed an amount
of work based on my initial entries - say 40 hours based on one person
for a duration of 5 work days. When I added a person, the 40 hours of
work remained the same so to account for the doubling of resources,
Project halves the duration to 2.5 days.
This is great if your producing widgets and you know exactly how much
effort it takes to produce each widget. To me the truth is that many
(most?) users are not so metrics based and they want to have more
control over how Project calculates Cost. Over the years, I have run
into countless people who gave up on Project because what it does
automatically out of the box. I have often wondered if MS would have
sold more copies if they had instead assumed most users are not
metrics based and then focused on training users to turn on some of
the automatic processing and the users environment became more
sophisticated.
I typically try to turn the auto-processing off by setting all tasks
to Complete As Soon As Possible and Fixed Duration and turn Effort
Driven off. I arrived at this combination of settings empirically but
I won't swear that it always give me the desired behavior. If someone
has other thoughts on the subject, I'm all ears. I'm especially
interested in knowing what undesirable consequences there might be
with these settings. My goal is to be able to create dumb schedules
that calculate costs and observe task dependencies. I want Work to be
equal to the sum of the number of hours I assign to each person
assigned to the task regardless of when the people are assigned. For
example, if I initially assign one person full time to a 5 day task, I
want to see 40 hours of Work. If I then add a 2nd person half time, I
want to see 60 hours of Work and the duration unchanged.
I am currently maintaining a schedule with the settings listed above
and just completed its 3rd generation. It has suddenly(?) exhibited
strange behavior. For some reason, the schedule is not calculating
Work as described above. On one task, I have to schedule a person
182% to get 16 hours of Work over a 2 day duration. What could cause
this? I've re-created the schedule segment that is behaving this way
in a seprate file and I'm getting the results I would expect. Between
the 2 files, the resources, durations, start/end dates, dependencies
are identical.
Also, I've been under the impression that if I go into Tools/Options/
Schedule (I'm using Project 2003), and set the Default Task Type to
Fixed Duration and turn Effort Driven off and then click on the Set as
Default button, all future schedules created would assume these
settings. I'm finding that this is not the case. I guess all I am
affecting is the tasks created for that particular schedule. Is there
a way to permanently establish default settings for all future
schedules. I understand that schedules inherit the settings in effect
at the time they were created/updated. So if I were to receive a
schedule form someone else, its settings would be in effect. But I'm
talking about schedules created and maintained on my PC and nowhere
else. BTW, I just discovered that some tasks I added to the schedule
I'm maintaining have been set to Effort Driven. How could that happen
when I had set the default settings as described above?
I've also come to realize that if there are red figures on Resource
Usage display, any Work overages will not be included in the Cost
calculation. For example, if the hours for a person total to 40 for a
week but that person is scheduled to work 12 hours one of the days and
4 hours another, 4 hours of the 12 hour day will not be included in
the Cost. How does one work around this? I would want the Cost to be
based on the full 40 hours. Perhaps leveling for just the one week
period is the answer? I dont have much experience with leveling.
I've tried it a few times and never got the desired results. But that
was for the entire schedule - not just a segment.
I'm starting to think I should have posted a series of NG articles.
Sorry if I'm overwhelming the readers out there. Thanks so much for
any help you can provide.
