beginner: difficulties with timeline

F

Fredo Vincentis

I have entered all my tasks into Project 2000, entered my resources and
allocated them to the tasks. I also set a few predecessors for those tasks
that rely on others to be completed first. What I expected was that Project
would start a new task "as soon as possible" without overallocating
resources. But instead of doing that, all my resources are hopelessly
overallocated. I didn't change the start-times or end-times, all I changed
was the duration of each task.

Any idea where I'm going wrong?

Thanks for your help.
 
G

Gérard Ducouret

Hello Fredo,

If you want to level the work load of your resources, do the following:
Tools/ Level Resources... / Level Now
Look at the Help for all the settings of the Resource leveling dialog box.

Gérard Ducouret
 
M

Mike Glen

M

Mike Glen

F

Fredo Vincentis

Hi guys, thanks for the welcome.

I have read your article and others as well on levelling, but I still don't
get it working. What I really want project to do is NOT to split any tasks
(so I turned that setting off), and NOT to adjust individual assignments. If
there is overallocation, I want the tasks to be pushed out longer until
there is no more overallocation.

If I uncheck all tick boxes and leave the other default settings, Project
suddenly changes the duration of some of my tasks to 0hrs!? That's one way
of getting rid of the overallocation, but not really implementable. I want
the duration of the tasks to remain the same.

Also it changes the duration of my project from 26 days to 11962 days. I
expected more like 40 days, not 32 years, to work on this project.

Any idea where I might be going wrong?

Thanks heaps!
 
G

Gérard Ducouret

Project suddenly changes the duration of some of my tasks to 0hrs!<<

Didn't you set the resource work on that task to 0 ?
Or the Units assigned to 0 ?


Gérard Ducouret
 
J

Jan De Messemaeker

Hi,

I'm nearly sure that you assigned a task to a resource with limited
availability in time
Then when Leveling pushes a task for that resource to a time after its
latest availability, it keeps on pushing till the end of its calendar
(31/12/2049)

Could you verify that?

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620
 
F

Fredo Vincentis

I set the resource units of each task to 100%. For every task I opened the
Task Information window and entered into the resources first the people that
work on the job, then the duration the task will take with thos people
working on it.
 
F

Fredo Vincentis

I have got absolutely no time constraints on the project, except for the
beginning of the first task, which is set to a certain date.

Could I email the file to one of you to have a quick look over it? Just to
see that I enetered everything I needed before levelling?
 
M

Mike Glen

Sure, Fredo, email me changing the AT to @ and I'll have a look tomorrow.

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
 
M

Mike Glen

For the record, Freda had, for example, 3 resources on a task, one of whom
had restricted working hours in a personal calendar. Thus the Duration
expanded to allow for all 3 resources to finish the allotted Work. So the
schedule, when levelled, pushed out the dates, made the Duration longer.

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
 
F

Fredo Vincentis

Thanks for the help on this, Mike. It gives me a good understanding on where
I went wrong (or actually I didn't go too wrong, Project just handled things
differently to what I expected).

But if I may add another question that still causes me headache on the same
project:

Again there are some tasks that include multiple resources at the same time
(e.g. a meeting between two people). One of the resources does not have a
Std. Rate. assigned to it, because it is an external party that is not being
paid for any of its work. The other resource has got a Std Rate of $65.00/h.
The meeting goes for an hour (Mike: this would be for example Task 11).

If I now change the View to "Cost" and check the "Total Cost" for one of
these tasks, it says "$0.00". However, in my understanding Project should
tell me the meeting cost $65.00, seeing that there is one resource with
$65.00 and the other with $0.00 Std. Rate.

This seems strange to me in particular because it is happening on some tasks
of that kind and it doesn't on others. I have got several meetings of
multiple resources throughout my project and some of them have got a Total
Cost, others don't. I can't see the pattern.

Any idea why this is happening?

Thanks heaps for your help, guys! I am learning a lot here.
 
M

Mike Glen

Hi Fredo,

That's because the costed resource is assigned at zero hours work. Split
the screen and have a look at the assignments.

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
 
F

Fredo Vincentis

Hmmm....

this is driving me mad. I have never felt so helpless with a computer
application as I do with Microsoft Project.

I originally assigned two resources to this particular task, both of them
100% and gave the task a duration of 1hr. Shouldn't I be able to expect that
a work load of 2hrs results out of this? Instead Project has reduced it to
Work: 1hr and Duration1hr and gave my costed resource a work of 0hrs. I see
that the problem is caused by my costed resource having the restricted
working time in his personal calendar, but changing his calendar to normal
working hours will only cause an unrealistic projet plan.

Can you guys seriously work with this program? It is really not the most
intuitive application.
 
M

Mike Glen

Hi Fredo,

Intuitive usage depends upon the user :) Microsoft Project is a very
sophisticated program and there are many traps for the unwary. I always
recommend as a minimum, a two-day introductory course on Project followed
some time later by an intermediate and then advanced course, depending on
how much practice you get in using it. So it costs, but you will be up and
running very much more quickly and your increasd knowledge, understanding
and efficiency will be a great investment. Just my opinion :)

Maybe someone else can dispute or reinforce this view!

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
 
J

John Beamish

Why should we assume that a task duration of 1 hour with two assignments
will generate 2 hours of work?

Duration does not equal work.

Fixed work tasks: If I asked you to write a report and gave you two weeks
(the duration) it is quite likely you will be doing other things at the
same time (work). In other words, your 2 weeks of duration may represent
only 10 hours of work. If an emergency arose and you couldn't get the
report done in the assigned duration, then increasing the duration will
not increase the amount of work.

Fixed duration tasks: Now, change that to a task like pouring concrete.
Assume it takes one day to pour the concrete slab for a house. If I
increase the duration to 20 days, this task is now (quite likely) to be
pouring the concrete slab for 20 houses. Increasing the duration did
increase the work

Project has the flexibility to handle situations like this. It is, once
you understand the complexity of the project management environment that
Project handles, quite intuitive. Although Project is developed and
maintained by the Office group, it is not a simple program like Word or
Excel. It is incredibly more complex and powerful than either of those
applications.

JLB, PMP

Hmmm....

this is driving me mad. I have never felt so helpless with a computer
application as I do with Microsoft Project.

I originally assigned two resources to this particular task, both of them
100% and gave the task a duration of 1hr. Shouldn't I be able to expect
that
a work load of 2hrs results out of this? Instead Project has reduced it
to
Work: 1hr and Duration1hr and gave my costed resource a work of 0hrs. I
see
that the problem is caused by my costed resource having the restricted
working time in his personal calendar, but changing his calendar to
normal
working hours will only cause an unrealistic projet plan.

Can you guys seriously work with this program? It is really not the most
intuitive application.
Click to expand...



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