lower the duration by adding resources

[sfjeffr]

i entered each task for the project along with the duration of the project.
i want to add resources. my final result would be lower the duration by
adding resources, can't seem to make that work correctly. secondly i would
like to have a graph the shows resources necessary by date. so i created all
projects on going and future. so i would pick a day in the future and it
would tell me how many resources i am going to need on that day? make sense?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

So far you are describing standard features of Project, and it is curious
that it doesn't seem to work.
When you assign a resource top a task, indeed duration doesn't change.
When you increase the assignment units afterwards (providing you kept the
standard task type) or when you add a resource to the task, duration will
definitely change.
And Resource Usage view will give you the load by date as expected.

Just one advice: it is very, very hard to use Project at its best without
having followed a course (2 days typically).

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

i entered each task for the project along with the duration of the project.
i want to add resources. my final result would be lower the duration by
adding resources, can't seem to make that work correctly. secondly i would
like to have a graph the shows resources necessary by date. so i created all
projects on going and future. so i would pick a day in the future and it
would tell me how many resources i am going to need on that day? make

sense?

 

[Ted Mawson - Portfolio PM]

sfjeffr,

Project has several options on how it handles Work, Units (people), and
Duration. Out of the box, all tasks are Fixed Units and effort-driven but
you can change this in the Task Dialogue box (double click a task and go to
the advanced tab). You'll find that you can have fixed Duration
(effort-driven or not) and fixed Work (has to be effort driven). You can set
up what all new tasks are by default under Tools-Options Schedule tab and you
can change any task regardless of the standard setting.

You need to know that Work = Units x Duration but that Project doesn't
calculate Work until you assign a resource; this means that a 5 day duration
task will cause a single resource assigned to the task to get 40 hrs of work.
However, if you now add an additional resource, the second resource reduces
the duration to half with the 2 resources now sharing the 40 hrs of work each
getting 20.

Try creating a project with 5 tasks called Fixed Units-ED, Fixed Units-Not
ED, Fixed Duration-ED, Fixed Duration-Not ED, Fixed Work-ED. Now set the
settings to match each task and add the work column to the table. Make each
task 5 d duration, note there is zero work for all tasks. Now add 2 resources
to the resource pool and assign 1 of those resources to every task. Note
that every task is the same, 5 d duration and 40 hrs of work. Now add the
second resource to every task in turn and watch what happens.

Ted Mawson

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi sfjeffr ,

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 & 11, 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

wrote: