Resource Substitution Wizard Across Mulitple Projects

[Gordon Grant]

Hi

The Resource Subtitution Wizard is driving me mad! Hopefully, someone might
be able to shed some light on the issue please. I am trying to level multiple
resources across multiple concurrent projects.

Server: MS Project Server 2007
Client: MS Project Pro 2007

I have 10 software implementation projects that need to run almost
simultaneously. All follow a virtually identical set of steps within each
project. I have a small team of 5, but we are cross-skilled so most people
can do most jobs. I wish MS Project to calculate the optimal way to complete
all projects in the quickest way. If I manually set 1 person per task type,
it will take me 15 months to do all the work. I know logically that I will be
able to do them faster if I am smart with substituting resources - but I
simply can't see how to get it to work. All the on-line docs says "always run
levelling after the Substitution Wizard to sort out over allocation" - why
can't the Substitution Wizard take over allocation into account?

Surely this is my fault and not the way that it is intended to work?

Thanks for any suggestions!
Gordon

 

[Gordon Grant]

CLARIFICATION:

When I say "If I manually set 1 person per task type, it will take me 15
months to do all the work." - what I mean is...

I have 5 people who can all do the "SQL Development" task - and this task
comes up regularly across all of my projects. If I allocate the resource
called Bob to SQL Development, he becomes a bottleneck and my projects take
15 months to complete. If I allocate Bob on to SQL Dev on Project 1, Jim on
to SQL Dev on Project 2, etc then all the projects complete a lot faster.

But there are too many tasks (30 per project across 10 projects) for me to
manually work out the best allocation of my team. I would like to know the
optimal distribution of my team across all 10 projects, given the deadlines
for various projects, people's skills and that they can only work 100% per
day.

Can project do this for me or am I asking for the impossible?

Hopefully that is clearer..?

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Gordon,

Try posting on the microsoft.public.project.server newsgroup (forum).
Please see FAQ Item: 24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and
other useful Project information can be seen at this web address:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP