How do I account for flexi-time?

[LizJ]

I am running Project Server and Project Professional 2003. My scenario is
this. I have several resources, each of whom have a list of tasks to
complete that I would now like to add to Project to help me to understand
when these tasks are likely to occur on the basis of the amount of work they
are likely to take and the resources required etc.

I have two questions
1. My resources will not always be working on Project Tasks (about 20% of
their time will be spent on additional things - admin etc.) To get as
realistic as possible an indication of the duration of a task, and whether a
resource is overallocated, is it best to allocate a resource as available
only 80% of the time in the enterprise, or in each project? If I do this in
each project, will Project tell me when the resource is overallocated across
multiple project tasks, and will I have to manually adjust the %age
allocation on the basis that a person working for 4 hours a day on a task is
working at 40% rather than 50%.

2. When resources update their actual work, they may have worked on a task
for the full 8 hours that they are in the office, (they did nothing else that
day) if I set them to 80% available surely this will show the resource as
having done too much work that day (i.e. been in the office too long).
We also have a flexi-time system, so it is conceivable that a resource may
actually work on project tasks for longer than the 8 hours they are meant to
be in the office e.g. 9 hours. I need to be able to identify what is
flexi-time, and what is simply working hours, in order that time can be
credited back to the individual concerned. Any suggestions as to how best to
represent this?

For information I have decided against using administrative projects and
tasks and rather to use non-working time for scheduling in order that other
tasks are re-scheduled on this basis - is this the best scenario?

My apologies for the length of this post. Any suggestions would be
appreciated. Thanks

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

If you want to reserve 20% of the resource's work day for non-project
activities, set their Maximum Availability to 80% in the master resource
list. When you assign the resource to a task, assign them at the percentage
of their time you expect them to put in on that particular task. The
resource percentage in a task assignment is the percent of that task's
duration that is reflected in the work. 100% on a 1-day task translates to
8 man-hours. 100% on 1 4-hour task translates to 4 man-hours, but 50% on a
1-day task also translates to a 4 man-hours, while 50% on a 4-hour task
consumes 2 man-hours.

Overallocation occurs when the total work required of a resource at any
given moment exceeds the maximum allocation allowed. It really doesn't
matter if it's one project or multiple projects that are involved, or even
one single task for that matter, it behaves the same way. Also don't make
the mistake of mentally translating percentages into raw hours per workday.
If Joe has a maximum of 80% and you assign him to Task X at 100%, he's
overallocated *regardless of the duration of Task X*. If you think that 80%
of his 8 hour workday means he's available up to 6 hours a day before he's
overallocated you'll only be partially correct. If you have Task A and Task
B, both running Monday from 8am to noon, and you assign Joe 50% on each,
you'll be getting 2 man-hours of work on each task for a total of 4
man-hours. Joe has no other tasks that day, so he's only using up 4
man-hours out of the total of 8 permitted. Yet he'll be flagged as
overallocated! Why? Because over the course of the 4 hours duration time
between 8am and 12noon, he's allowed to consume 80%, or *3* man-hours, not
6! When we resource level, one of those tasks will be pushed to the
afternoon and we'll be ok but if they're scheduled at the same time we're
not, even though Joe's total work for the day is well under his maximum
daily allowance.

Project has only rudimentary ability to track the total workload of
resources. IMHO, the administrative project in project server is a sop to
the people who are want to use project for personnel management but
personally I feel it's not a good practice - project management and human
resources management are two vastly different areas with different
priorities and one shouldn't use the tools optimized for one to try to do
the other. When you try to do everything with one tool, you end up doing
nothing very well. MS Project is very good at tracking the work required to
do the project's tasks but its work and cost tracking is aimed at managing
the project's TASK budgets, not the enterprise's PERSONNEL budget.
Certainly there's some overlap and if you stay in that area you'll be fine.
But when you start talking about differentiating regular hours and flexitime
hours and tracking non-flex hours to be able to carry them over to future
dates or tracking work hours like, say, Joe is allowed 6 hours on Monday but
only works 4 so he can carry the unused 2 hours over to Tuesday and legally
work up to 8 on a different task that day, you're really moving out of the
world of managing the project's tasks and MSP really doesn't do much of that
sort of thing.

 

[LizJ]

Steve
Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. The reason for my second question was
that we already have a company-wide electronic system in place for managing
timesheets, that requires stating what we're working on and for how long.

I see Project as having a really important role to play in what the
organisation is trying to do, however, management are reluctant to add yet
another system particularly if it means that work is potentially duplicated,
which was what I was hoping to avoid.

But I take your point and I will propose that we either continue with the
two systems, or implement an alternative system that simply captures actual
hours worked, with Project providing the answers to the what and when
questions.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Good plan - to add a thought, remember that project's focus is on getting
the project specific work of the organization done on time and within budget
and it essentially ignores everything else that might be going on.
Answering the "what and when" questions after the work is done is almost an
afterthought, in the sense that the primary function of the project manager,
in much the same way as the conductor of an orchestra, is to direct and
coordinate the work of the resources so as to most efficiently meet the
objectives of the organization. While MSP certainly has reporting tools to
track what people have done, it *primary* function is to figure out what
people are SUPPOSED to be doing and when they're supposed to be doing it.
Whether the Project Manager has the official position power of being the
resource's boss or not, for the purposes of the project that's exactly what
he/she is, functionally if not officially, and the software's primary
purpose is as a tool to aid you, the boss, in planning and coordinating the
work you will require them to do. It's future-oriented - the tracking tools
are there to help you evaluate how well you've done the planning and to help
you keep the project on track towards its objective.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs