One Task, Many Resource Percentages

K

Keith

I was wondering if anyone has an easy (or hard) way to solve the following
simple problem:

I have 1 Task, 300 hours of work remaining. I assign 3 resources, keying in
the following allocations: Two work 30%, one works 50%. MS Project always
seems to take the 300 hours of work remaining and divides it equally by the
number of resources so everyone has 100 hours of work. Then it calulates the
duration based on the 'critical path resources' - the 30% people. The '50%'
person finishes first and MS Project just has this person sitting on their
hands until the 30% people are done. Must I always go in and manually
re-allocate hours so everyone finishes at the same time?
 
R

Rod Gill

Hi,

Select Window, Split to see each assignment. In the task form in the lower
pane, deselect Effort Driven. This stops Project sharing the work when you
assign extra resources. You can now edit Units and work for each assignment.
Leave Fixed Units as the task type.
 
K

Keith

Hi Rod,

It would appear then that there is no way for MSP project to perform the
calcs automatically to have everyone finish at the same time. We can just
calc how much work is assigned to the 30% person to cover the duration and
enter that work.
 
R

Rod Gill

No problem.

With effort driven off on a new task, enter the task duration then assign
each resource with the correct units. All resources then finish at the same
time.
 
M

Mike Glen

Hi Keith,

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 - Multiple Resource Assignments, 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
 
S

Steve House [Project MVP]

One possible approach is to look again at the task breakdown. I teach my
students to keep in mind the "8/80" rule of thumb which says if your tasks
are under 8 hours you're trying to excessively micromanage and if they're
over 80 hours you're not breaking the work down into sufficient detail. If
you look at the task with the idea of "one task is the work done by one
resource that produces one indentifiable deliverable" you may find that you
can split up the resources and track their work as separate subtasks rolling
up into a summary task that represents the big task you have now and the
scheduling problems will go away.
 

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