Jan's answer is a good one. I have a hard time believing that all the
"Devs" have identical skills sets and competencies and thus are completely
freely interchangeable on all tasks. There are bound to be differences that
make Dev A better suited for one thing while Dev B is better suited for
something else. But if they are truly identical, another approach with 9
"Devs" is to have a single resource entry for "Dev" with a maximum
availability of 900%. If you want one of them on a task you assign Dev at
100%, 2 of them on the task would be Dev at 200% and so forth. But it is
always a human decision by the PM how many Devs to assign to a given task.
If you have a total of only, say, 500% out of the total 900% Devs assign to
tasks at some given time, Project assumes it's because the other 4 Devs are
tied up on something outside the project universe, thus outside MS Project's
purvue, and are not available for that particular time period. Otherwise
you'd already have put all nine on the task right from the get-go, right?.
You know whether that's true of not; Project doesn't. If more than 500%
really COULD be used, it's up to you to make the decision to increase the
assignment percentage on the task in question from 500% to the new level by
editing the resource assignment percentage on that task.
Remeber, Project NEVER assigns resources to tasks, only the PM does.
Project's only assumption when it uses default resource assigments is that
the task breakdown is granular enough for the "one deliverable = one task =
work of one resource" rule to apply and so it uses as the default setting an
assignment level of 100% or the Maximum Availability, whichever is less,
whenever a resource is assigned without an explicit assignment level being
specified by the PM.
Another point to remember, the Maximum Available entry on the resource sheet
or the Resource Availability chart in the Resource Information sheet is only
telling Project how many you can use before it red-flags it as being
overallocated. It conveys no information about how many you intend to use
at any given point in time. Instead it basically only serves to set up an
alarm condition to warn you if you try to use more than you actually have.
HTH
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs
crisg said:
Hi Steve -
Thanks for the quick response. When you say 'make the adjustment in the
assignment manually', that's the part I'm struggling with since this is a
high level plan. We are not at the point where we can assign specific
resources to specific work assignments. In addition, I've been asked to
come
up with 'what if' scenarios such as -
-We start the year with 7 resources
-In Q1, we add 3 more
-In Q2, we add 2 more, etc
My strategy was to use this one 'Dev' resource and increment by 100% every
time we brought on a new resource. My intention is that if we get to the
last work assignment and all 9 resources are avaialble, then I want to
make
sure all 9 are assigned so that we complete the assignment sooner.
So given this information, how would you specifically make the manual
adjustment when there is only one resource identified as 'Dev' which is
meant
to represent the entire Dev team.
Thanks very much for your time.
Best Regards,
--
crisg
Steve House said:
Leveling never adds or deletes resources from a task, all it does is
shift
tasks. It is not "resource optimizing" and it assumes that when you
didn't
assign all 9 resources to that last task yourself you must have had a
good
reason behind it so it won't override your decision. If you find you
have
additional resources free, it's up to you to make the adjustment in the
assignment manually.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs
Hi Mike -
Thanks for the response. I underestand what you are saying and I think
I
understand the concept of levelling. What you described is what I
would
like
it to do - 'delay tasks until resources are available'. Perhaps I
should
reword the question. After I have done the resource levelling - for
the
last
work assignment, all 9 resources are available. How do i get project
to
utilize ALL 9 of the 'Dev' resource so that the assignment is completed
at
an
earlier date?
Thank you in advance for your time.
Best Regards,
crisg
--
crisg
:
Hi crisg,
Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup
The 700% or 900% resource figures are the maximum that Project will
allow
when levelling, not the minimum. Levelling just delays tasks until
resources are available, nothing else. I guess you have assigned only
200%
Dev to the final task, so Project does what you've told it to do.
Project
does not assign resources - that's your job (how could Project know?)
FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be
seen
at
this web address:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm
Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on
Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials
crisg wrote:
Hi -
Can anyone offer advice on the following? I have a resource named
'Dev'. I have entered all of my tasks and done level resourcing to
see the adjsuted end date of the project. At the start of the
year,
I enter Dev at 700% capacity since i have 7 Dev employees. Two
months later I increase the capacity to 900% (using the From and To
Availbility fields for the resource) as I will have two new Dev
resources. I then clear and relevel the resources to see the
adjusted date. This works until we get to the last scheduled work
assignment. At that point, instead of utilizing all 9 resources, it
drops back down to 2. Why won't it utilize all 9 resources for that
last work assignment? Does this make sense.?
Thanks in advance for the help.
