Newbie genearl PM question

[prodilosso]

Can anyone provide general guidelines as to when a massive project should be
split into linked .mpp files?
I'd like to put the Program in one file and the sub-projects in separate
files.
I know that you can have a task constrained to an external source BUT ...
it appears that I can only have one project open at a time so it is
difficult to work with.
Thanks,
PR

 

[JulieS]

Hi prodilosso,

A can offer a few general guidelines and I am sure that others will have
some suggestions as well.

You may wish to consider separate project files later consolidated into a
master if:

The tasks put into one project would be unwieldy to work with in terms of
opening and working with the file. Usually that would be files with greater
than 1,000 to 2,000 tasks.

Multiple people need to work with portions of the project at the same time.
For instance, Joe may be responsible for phase 1, Mary may be responsible
for phase 2, Pete is responsible for phase 3. It would make more sense for
phase 1, 2, and 3 to be in separate files so each person can work with the
phase he/she is responsible for.

As far as your comment about only having one project opened at a time, as
far as I know, having multiple files open in Project has been around for a
long time. What version of Project are you using?

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[Just Fun]

Hi,
I'm curious. What tasks are in the Program that are not part of a
subproject? Are these administrative tasks.
Just wondering what constitutes a Program in your world?
I am just starting to think of using a master project with subprojects
linked to it. I build new homes, so, each home will be a subproject. I
cannot envision tasks that would go into a master project but not be a task
in one of the subprojects (a new home). My homes are each 100 to 150 tasks
each. I have 3 to 5 homes in various stages of completion at the same time.
Up till now we have thought that each house's schedule did not impact the
progress on another house's schedule so each house is a sperate Project
file. Because the real world tells us that this is not the case, I will be
trying my hand at multi-project management.
Are you breaking the subprojects down by phase or responsibility?
I once had a project of multi-family condos that had about 700 tasks in it
spread across a year and a half. I found it to be my upper limit of
manageability. (That was on an old 80286 machine.)
John Hansen

 

[DavidC]

Hi Just for fun,

when you mention that each individual house does impact on the other, are
you meaning because of conflicting resource claims? Tasks between two house
should only be linked IF one task (not resource) is truly dependant on the
other. Look at the tasks as though you have an unlimited amount of resources
available to do the work and then only link the tasks where there is a true
dependency. Eg linings must have all the services first fixes completed
before they can start.

The scheduling of when the tasks will start may then depend on when the
resources are available to work on the task. That is achieved through
applying resources to each task and identifying how many resources of each
type are available to be allocate to tasks. I suspect that it is with the
resources that th 'real world' dictates that houses are not totally
independant of each other but do in fact have some dependency.

Mike Glenn has a number of articles on Tech Trax that are worthy of reading
that deal with both setting up master projects and with setting up a common
resource pool. This is the likely approach that you need for your
application.

Hope this is of help

regards
DavidC

 

[Just Fun]

Hi,

Yes, the resources are the issue. Mostly it is the staffing of the jobs
with tradesmen. But sometimes it is materials and tools such as concrete
forms or large equipment such as excavating equipment. I would never link
the task of one house to another. Well maybe I would do it just to identify
which job comes first. Imagine an asphalt contractor who shows up one day in
May to do the driveways after a winter of being idle. If he has 4 drives to
do and can only do three in one day, the last thing you want is for him to
do the three that will move in next month and leave the house that moves in
next week till tomorrow or worse yet three weeks from now, when he gets back
in your neighborhood. In this business, the value of being on-site to manage
things is underestimated, but a schedule that is not clear about these
things will only hurt you. If left to his own, he will simply take the
closest houses to the entrance to the subdivision.

Another example of why I might occasionally link tasks from several houses
follows: In the context of large subdivision work I have in the past had
issues where a subcontractor will "Jump" onto a house that was ready for his
phase of the work, but my experience tells me that if I have two or more
houses that are close to having the same schedule and they get out of order,
it takes the might of several strong horses to regain control of the
schedule to get them back in the right order. (Yes this raises the question
of who's running the job.) In the residential construction world, everyone
wants to do the first available work and thus it becomes a matter of follow
the leader (chronologically speaking). And there are many jobs where the
subs are running the job.
In these cases I might link certain tasks as F-S in order to aid in
establishing order.

I'm sorry if this thread is drifting off-topic (the one started by
Prodilosso). We can carry if further in a new thread if you like.

John Hansen

 

[DavidC]

Understand exactly what you mean. Part of the issue is one which Project
cannot be expected to help with and that is simple management. There are
times when you have to simply manage the contractors. To help with this
though and where you have the concerns is scheduling which drive to do first
when four houses all come due at the same time.

First assign a deadline to the completion of each house. This will create
critical paths for you, and the slack between end of the house and preceeding
activities will differ from house to house. This is important as resource
levelling uses the slack values to 'decide' how to order conflicting
resources. Hence if you have three houses with driveways all able to be done
at the same time, but house 1 has the first deadline, house two the second
and house three the third deadline, then the slack between finishing the
house and the driveway being completed will differ from house to house.
Project will then level out the asphalting contractor's work based on the
slack available at each house, so it should schedukle House 1 first, house 2
second etc.

You may have other reasons to prioritise houses, in which case you can set
priorities of each task in the project and when levelling select to level by
Standard,Priority.

Using the levelling function on the critical resources will give you dates
that you can then give to your contractors and subject to no other changes
make those dates firm to them and simply follow up as normal to make sure
they are ready as advised previously.

Hiope this helps

Regards

DavidC