Priorities for tasks

[3326ubb]

Hi all,

Using MSP'98 with master (with 30 sub-projects inserted) to manage
multi-department, multi-resource (man & machine both) workshop which
has some 40 projects being executed at their varoius completion stages.


I have configured the schedules & I get the work load for resources
(simple who does what when report) or similar report for department
(instead of resource). It's fine, but the report is just a list of
activities from all sub-projects in which I can only identify the
critical activities.

The problem is the departments want the priorities for all the
activities. e.g. If for a week, the report lists 20 activities to be
carried of which 5 are critical. My department heads agree that the 5
will be done on priority, but the balance resources can work on only 5
activities of remaining 15 activities. Now which are these 5 priorities
which should be worked upon,
In other words, Can I get all the twenty activities sorted as per
priority with critical always at top of list ?

The guidance will be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[JulieS]

Hi 3326ubb,

It's been quite awhile since I worked with Project 98 and I don't believe
that release had a priority field. Later releases (I *think* beginning with
2000, have a priority field that may be used to refine Resource Leveling.)

The best work around I can come up with is to use one of the custom text
field (text1 for example) and enter the priorities as "high", "medium", and
"low". Then sort the project by Critical then by Text1. To sort, choose
Project > Sort > Sort by and select those fields.

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

Julie

 

[Steve House]

You need to be a bit careful here as you're using terms and concepts in a
way quite different from what Project uses them to mean.

First, "critical" has nothing to do with importance to the project or even
important to finish first. It is a strictly mathematical definition based
on slack time, meaning that a task that has slack <= zero is critical.
Slack means the amount of time a task could be delayed without delaying the
project finish or the start of a successor and it is always a value
calculated by Project and cannot be entered by the user. So there's no way
for you to tell Project that Task X is critical and Task Y is not - it tells
YOU which tasks are or are not critical, indeed identifying them for you is
part of its job. And as the schedule evolves, a task might swith between
critical and non-critical many times, depending on how its timing lies in

Second, the Task Priority setting only comes into play when you are doing
resource leveling. Essentially the higher the priority number, the more
reluctant the leveling engine is to delay it. So if Joe is overallocated
because he is assigned to Task X and also to Task Y, both presently
scheduled for Monday, leveling will delay one of them until Tuesday. Which
one gets moved is driven by an internal algorithm, however you can weight
the algorithm by setting one of them to a higher priority than the other so
the lower numbered one of the two is the one that gets preferentially
shifted. All other things being equal, if Project's leveling tool needs to
move one of two conflicting tasks to clear the resource overallocation, it
will move a Priority 4 task instead of a Priority 5 task. (Note that it is
the reverse of common conversation, with Priority 1 the lowest priority and
Priority 9 the highest.)

You can indeed sort by critical yes or no and by priority but I'vew got a
feeling it's not going to do for you what you think it will.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi 3326ubb

Project 98 has 10 levels of priority named medium, low, high, etc. However,
critical does not mean high priority, just that there is no slack. And the
Priority field is only used by Project when you select Priority,Standard
when levelling, so that it knows which task to assign an overallocated
resourcce to first. So, criticality and Priority settings are unlikely to
give you what you want. Go with Julie's suggestion of creating your own set
of rules.

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[JulieS]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the follow-up. I forgot that priority *was* in Project 98.
Alas, my long-term memory appears gone.

Julie

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Julie,

I have all versions on my PC - I just opened it up and had a look No way
would I have remembered either - I'd forgotten that its priorities were in
words rather than numbers.

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[3326ubb]

Thanks JulieS, Mike, Steve for your replies.
Sorry, I didn't mention but I have already played around with this
priority field. Even I have a macro to ease the planner's work which
accords the priority to all the sub-tasks the priority that of summary
task. But this can be done at the start of schedule only.

My problem is that during execution of the schedule, the situation &
progress is so dynamic that the task which was lowest priority becomes
highest priority & comes on critical path some day. This change as the
schedule progress does not reflect in the priority field. Hence I agree
with Steve's concluding statement. With this priority field I can not
get what I want.

I have found a mid-way which is not a perfect solution but. I export
all the tasks (scheduled for a day or week or 15 days) to excel & there
I sort so that critical are on top & then balance are sorted with
ascending slack value.

This solution works, but I wanted a better solution. Hope I am clear in
what I have written. Thanks again for your valuable inputs.

You need to be a bit careful here as you're using terms and concepts in
a
way quite different from what Project uses them to mean.

First, "critical" has nothing to do with importance to the project or
even
important to finish first. It is a strictly mathematical definition
based
on slack time, meaning that a task that has slack <= zero is critical.
Slack means the amount of time a task could be delayed without delaying
the
project finish or the start of a successor and it is always a value
calculated by Project and cannot be entered by the user. So there's no
way
for you to tell Project that Task X is critical and Task Y is not - it
tells
YOU which tasks are or are not critical, indeed identifying them for
you is
part of its job. And as the schedule evolves, a task might swith
between
critical and non-critical many times, depending on how its timing lies
in

Second, the Task Priority setting only comes into play when you are
doing
resource leveling. Essentially the higher the priority number, the
more
reluctant the leveling engine is to delay it. So if Joe is
overallocated
because he is assigned to Task X and also to Task Y, both presently
scheduled for Monday, leveling will delay one of them until Tuesday.
Which
one gets moved is driven by an internal algorithm, however you can
weight
the algorithm by setting one of them to a higher priority than the
other so
the lower numbered one of the two is the one that gets preferentially
shifted. All other things being equal, if Project's leveling tool needs
to
move one of two conflicting tasks to clear the resource overallocation,
it
will move a Priority 4 task instead of a Priority 5 task. (Note that it
is
the reverse of common conversation, with Priority 1 the lowest priority
and
Priority 9 the highest.)

You can indeed sort by critical yes or no and by priority but I'vew got
a
feeling it's not going to do for you what you think it will.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs