S
Scott Mitchell
I hope this doesn't stump the MVPs as I would really like a solution
but I'm not sure if this is possible with MS Project. Here goes...
Assume four tasks:
(a) Code the Logon Page, 6 hrs estimated work
(b) Code the New Account Page, 26 hrs estimated work
(c) Code the Logout Page, 4 hrs estimated work
(d) Code the Billing Engine, 40 hrs estimated work
Tasks are fixed duration of 5 days, no predecessors (they can be done
in any order).
Assume 1 resource, Jim, who works 40 hours per week at a rate of
$1,000 per week.
I want the tasks to be scheduled over 2 weeks:
Week 1 = tasks (a) and (b), 32 hrs work total
Week 2 = tasks (c) and (d), 44 hrs work total
Jim will work these tasks. He'll be 8 hours underbooked for week 1.
That's ok. He can start week 2 early. For the purists, you might be
hitting "reply" right now to tell me this is wrong but bear with me
for a moment. This isn't the problem I'm trying to solve.
The key here is that I want to assign Jim to the tasks but I also want
Project to calculate Jim's cost based on the fact that he will be
working 2 weeks instead of basing it on the absolute work assigned to
him via the tasks. For example, since Jim is assigned 78 hrs of work,
Project calculates cost as 78 * rate per hour. I want project to
ignore this and to calculate Jim's cost using his weekly rate and the
fact that he is planned to be on the project for 2 weeks. In essence,
MS Project is "micro" calculating the cost whereas I need a "macro"
calculation. Even if I had...
Week 3 = task (e), 6 hrs work total assigned to Jim
.... I still want Project to use an entire week of Jim's $ rate to
calculate cost even though he is 80% underbooked. The hours not
assigned are considered "buffer" and I expect to use them for rework,
bug fixes, etc. Yes, I could add the "buffer" tasks to each week but
this becomes a task mgmt nightmare of having to maintain each buffer
amount each week and it doesn't solve the issue of weeks where Jim is
overbooked (more than 40 hours) since I can't add in a negative buffer
to offset the cost.
If you're still reading, I'm amazed, he he.
What I've had to do is use 2 resources - 1 being "Jim (Dev)" with no
cost rate and 1 being "Jim" with the cost rate. Jim (Dev) is assigned
tasks and Jim is assigned to a generic task for his planned duration.
That works, but I have to do a lot of manual calculations in Excel to
derive metrics such as comparing Jim's planned work to the amount of
work assigned to Jim (Dev), the difference of the two would be Jim's
buffer.
Still with me? If so, please understand that I know this might not
fit your ideal recommendation for planning. I'm familiar with how to
change my schedule out of "weekly bucket" mode to get it more fine
tuned. However, those options won't fit with the bigger picture so
I'm really looking at ways to make this work (no pun intended). If
you've got one, please share!
Thanks in advance for any help,
Scott
but I'm not sure if this is possible with MS Project. Here goes...
Assume four tasks:
(a) Code the Logon Page, 6 hrs estimated work
(b) Code the New Account Page, 26 hrs estimated work
(c) Code the Logout Page, 4 hrs estimated work
(d) Code the Billing Engine, 40 hrs estimated work
Tasks are fixed duration of 5 days, no predecessors (they can be done
in any order).
Assume 1 resource, Jim, who works 40 hours per week at a rate of
$1,000 per week.
I want the tasks to be scheduled over 2 weeks:
Week 1 = tasks (a) and (b), 32 hrs work total
Week 2 = tasks (c) and (d), 44 hrs work total
Jim will work these tasks. He'll be 8 hours underbooked for week 1.
That's ok. He can start week 2 early. For the purists, you might be
hitting "reply" right now to tell me this is wrong but bear with me
for a moment. This isn't the problem I'm trying to solve.
The key here is that I want to assign Jim to the tasks but I also want
Project to calculate Jim's cost based on the fact that he will be
working 2 weeks instead of basing it on the absolute work assigned to
him via the tasks. For example, since Jim is assigned 78 hrs of work,
Project calculates cost as 78 * rate per hour. I want project to
ignore this and to calculate Jim's cost using his weekly rate and the
fact that he is planned to be on the project for 2 weeks. In essence,
MS Project is "micro" calculating the cost whereas I need a "macro"
calculation. Even if I had...
Week 3 = task (e), 6 hrs work total assigned to Jim
.... I still want Project to use an entire week of Jim's $ rate to
calculate cost even though he is 80% underbooked. The hours not
assigned are considered "buffer" and I expect to use them for rework,
bug fixes, etc. Yes, I could add the "buffer" tasks to each week but
this becomes a task mgmt nightmare of having to maintain each buffer
amount each week and it doesn't solve the issue of weeks where Jim is
overbooked (more than 40 hours) since I can't add in a negative buffer
to offset the cost.
If you're still reading, I'm amazed, he he.
What I've had to do is use 2 resources - 1 being "Jim (Dev)" with no
cost rate and 1 being "Jim" with the cost rate. Jim (Dev) is assigned
tasks and Jim is assigned to a generic task for his planned duration.
That works, but I have to do a lot of manual calculations in Excel to
derive metrics such as comparing Jim's planned work to the amount of
work assigned to Jim (Dev), the difference of the two would be Jim's
buffer.
Still with me? If so, please understand that I know this might not
fit your ideal recommendation for planning. I'm familiar with how to
change my schedule out of "weekly bucket" mode to get it more fine
tuned. However, those options won't fit with the bigger picture so
I'm really looking at ways to make this work (no pun intended). If
you've got one, please share!
Thanks in advance for any help,
Scott