Weighting resource loading based on project probability?

A

andylv

I have a couple of Gantt charts that are about 200 tasks long that I use to
manage my group's workload. Most of the tasks have multiple resources with
each resource assigned a certain percentage of time available.

I want to use these Gantt charts to forecast personnel requirements for my
budget for 2006.

We have projects that have 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25% probability. What I’d
like to be able to do is have the projects that have a 25% probability show
up as 25% resource requirement; another way to put is four 25% probability
projects would equal one 100% probability project in my resource graph.

How can I do this w/o adjusting each resource’s % of time assigned?

TIA,

Andy
 
J

John

andylv said:
I have a couple of Gantt charts that are about 200 tasks long that I use to
manage my group's workload. Most of the tasks have multiple resources with
each resource assigned a certain percentage of time available.

I want to use these Gantt charts to forecast personnel requirements for my
budget for 2006.

We have projects that have 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25% probability. What I’d
like to be able to do is have the projects that have a 25% probability show
up as 25% resource requirement; another way to put is four 25% probability
projects would equal one 100% probability project in my resource graph.

How can I do this w/o adjusting each resource’s % of time assigned?

TIA,

Andy

Andy,
I guess I don't buy into the idea that 4 projects each with a 25%
probability of occurring are equivalent to a single project that has a
100% probability of occurring. As I recall probabilities just don't add
up that way. So either I don't quite understand what you want to do or
you might want to re-think your approach.

If I take another interpretation and assume you want to assign resources
at 25% allocation to those projects with a 25% probability and so forth,
then wouldn't that mean that the only project that gets worked is the
one that is 100% probable? It seems all the resources will allocated to
that project.

It may be possible to do what you want, but I think we need more
clarification - as least I do.

John
Project MVP
 
A

andylv

John, thanks for the reply.
As for your comment about probabilities just don't add up that way. I
agree, but I’m lucky to get our sales guys to make a guess at percentage of
likely hood of getting the business at all. I really have no statistical
history to build on, but I don’t want to completely ignore the projects that
are less than 100% either.

So back to the question how can I take a Gantt chart’s resources and prorate
the resources by the percentage of likely hood of getting the business?

Thank you for your help,

Andy
 
J

John

andylv said:
John, thanks for the reply.
As for your comment about probabilities just don't add up that way. I
agree, but I’m lucky to get our sales guys to make a guess at percentage of
likely hood of getting the business at all. I really have no statistical
history to build on, but I don’t want to completely ignore the projects that
are less than 100% either.

So back to the question how can I take a Gantt chart’s resources and prorate
the resources by the percentage of likely hood of getting the business?

Thank you for your help,

Andy


Andy,
Ok, so what about my comment in my second paragraph? In other words,
what's the resource allocating algorithm that you want to use? But in my
mind, twenty five percent allocation for 25% probability projects and
100% allocation for "sure thing" projects just doesn't fly.

Thinking about it for a while, the idea of directly tying resource
allocation to project probability seems like a bad idea. But here's
something that might work and it does at least make sense. Clearly the
sure thing project needs to be fully loaded with resources. What I might
do for projects that are iffy is something like the following. If a
project is 75% likely, lay out a plan that has all the critical elements
covered (i.e. basically leave out the detail). Then load that project
with resources to ensure the critical tasks are covered. For the project
that is 50% likely, lay out a plan to cover the startup critical items.
For a one year project maybe that's the first 3 months worth. Then load
that plan. For the 25% project, identify the most critical tasks to get
started, maybe equivalent to the first month's effort. When all the
projects are loaded, sum up the required resources and then multiply by
1.25 (assumes 80% efficiency for all resources).

At least that might be an approach I would take. If you or somebody else
has a better one, let's hear it.

John
Project MVP
 

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