Resource Assignment - Backwards

[Jim Aksel]

Good morning peers. Using Project2003.
Project Manager has assigned a group of people to work a project- Resource A
is available 50%, Resource B is available 25%, etc. They will divide
themselves among "n" simultaneous tasks and get done what they can. The
total amount of allowed work is given by the period of performance and the
%units. We should assume these are Level of Effort tasks.

If 4 tasks are in play today, then resouce A will work 1 hour on each task,
resource B will work 0.5 hrs. Task start/finishes are different for each
task in play.

A large group of tasks is assigned and every one of them will have the same
resource assignments -- A and B. I have "n" tasks. I would like to be able
to select all these tasks and tell project: "Assign A and B to all these
tasks such that they are not overloaded while keeping all the same dates." I
can make the tasks fixed duration, etc. That is, I want Project to determine
the correct units% day by day so A & B are not overloaded.

So on any given day, I will have "n" tasks in play. The total allocation
of A is not to exceed 50% of their time (4 hours among "n" tasks) and B is
25% (2 hours) among the same "n" tasks. "Tomorrow", "n" becomes a new number
"m" because there are a new set of tasks in play (most of which are the same
as yesterday). Now I want to divide up A and B using the same rules. The
task durations are typically 5 days to 3 weeks (variable) and I need to load
the resources so that are not overloaded on any given day.

After making these assignments, I will need to return to the PM to verify
staffing plan and if there is a sufficeint amount of hours assigned to each
task to allow the work to be done. If not, he will either need more people
or more duration which is going to be a customer driven decision.

Am I asking it to do too much? Should I be putting on my VBA hat and
attacking it that way, or hasn't my Starbucks coffee kicked in yet this
morning?

 

[Rod Gill]

Project can't do this. However, it sounds like you are trying to time manage
your tasks, which Project is not suited for. I would have a list of small
tasks they need to do in Excel, then have one task in project representing
all tasks in the list. Assign the resources to match maximum availability
for the duration and leave time managing the work to A and B and/or team
leader.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

Project VBA Book, for details visit:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

NEW!! Web based VBA training course delivered by me. For details visit:
http://projectservertraining.com/learning/index.aspx

 

[Jim Aksel]

I had another talk with the PM and we are going to place all these types of
tasks into one LOE task in Project. The scope is defined as part of the SOW
in the Cost Account Plan Work Package.

If I have to support "Dry Run Tests" with one guy for an hour or two guys
all day they just get two different levels of support. Since he can't hand
me a list of deliverables, I cannot justify all the little tasks as separate
lines in Project.

In effect, we are implementing your approach, just on a more formal level to
satisfy the Earned Value Compliance Goddess. Thanks for the input,
telling them "No" is sometimes the best answer.
--
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Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Rod Gill]

Good one! Sometimes simpler is better.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

Project VBA Book, for details visit:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

NEW!! Web based VBA training course delivered by me. For details visit:
http://projectservertraining.com/learning/index.aspx