Forecasting Resource Contraints

[Omar]

I currently using MS Project 2003 to manage a Master Schedule (w/ multiple
project schedules) that has seen several schedule slips by multilple vendors.
Due to the nature of the tasking, the schedule is only partially resource
loaded and some customization has been made in terms of fields being tracked.
Can Project provide a snapshot or forecast (no more than 3 months out) of
where the tasking piles up? Essentially I need to be able to provide the
client with a "best guess" of where we could potentially be resource
constrained based on the schedule slips.

 

[JulieS]

Hello Omar,

In order for Project to calculate overallocations, you'll need to
have resources assigned to the tasks. A suggestion if you don't
know which specific resources will be used is to create some
placeholder resources and assign them to the tasks. Then as the
schedule slips and the task begin to come into conflict, you can use
the resource overallocation flagging in Project as your forecast.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[Omar]

The problem with the tasking that I receive is that while I have a projected
start date and anywhere from 30-45 days to complete, I don't know how many
hours it will take me to complete until I receive the tasking. In some
cases, I may be given 30 days but the work may only take 20 hours. So that
you have a better appreciation of the tasking, we are performing Engineering
Document reviews. So when we receive a document we can then determine how
long it will take to complete within the 30 or 45 days provided. Thoughts?

 

[JulieS]

Thanks for the additional information. Sorry, I'm not familiar with
engineering document reviews specifically, but if I understand you
correctly, it sounds as though you need to be able to add new tasks
to your project that may allow a fairly long time (duration) to
complete a relatively small amount of work. While you may not know
the specifics at the inception of the project, I imagine you do know
(based upon experience) that you have to complete a document review
after several other tasks are complete. So, I suggest creating the
document review tasks with the appropriate predecessor/successor
relationships. Enter the 30 days duration. To spread the 20 hours
of work out across the 30 days duration, temporarily set the task as
fixed duration and assign the resource with 20 hours of work.
Project will calculate the assignment units necessary. If the work
estimate changes, you can make that modification and Project will
again recalculate assignment units.

Julie