How should I setup multiple Tasks for work in parallel by a team?

M

MikeRMT

I am writing a primer for Project Managers here and this is a key issue. Can
you please review what I have written and verify it is correct? It may be of
use to others out struggling with the same issue too. Thankyou

I have many tasks and a team of resources. Each Task may be picked up and
worked on by different team members but I don't know the mix yet. I want them
all to be able to see the tasks in their current view and to work on these
tasks as required.

Answer:
This is a complex question, before attempting this the user must have a
clear understanding of the Project concepts of Work, Duration and Units% (aka
MaxUnits%).

There are three methods:
i) Team Assignment – Not recommended
(1) A team can be defined containing a set of individuals – see separate
procedure
(2) The team resource needs to have MaxUnits% set to 100%x number of resources
(3) Assign Tasks to the team Resource
(4) Tasks will appear on the Team Managers task view for reassignment to
team members
(5) Tasks will not consume resources ie: Project does not deplete
availability of the team or team members associated with these tasks– as a
result this is not recommended for significant projects
(6) Once a Task has been assigned to a named resource in the Team
it can only be worked on by that Resource, so it it not useful for shared
tasks.

ii) Generic Resource - Recommended
(1) A Generic Resource is defined named to correspond to group of individuals
(2) The resource needs to have MaxUnits% set to 100%x number of resources
(3) Assign Tasks to the Resource
(4) Tasks will appear on the Project or Status Managers Task view for
reassignment to individuals
(5) Tasks will consume resources. When looking at Resource Availability,
Resource Managers need to select their team members and the associated
Generic Resource to get the full picture
(6) This is the best method for handling bulk tasks in the early
stages of project planning, switch to Multiple Named Resources for key tasks
as they approach if required

iii) Multiple Named Resources - Use with caution
(1) Assign multiple Resources to the affected Tasks
(2) Adjust the Units% for each of the Resources to the fraction appropriate
to the number of Resources being applied to the task. Eg: If 1 resource/task
was 100% the 3 resources/task would be at 33% each
(3) Each of the Resources will receive the task in their My Tasks view
(4) This process can get messy if you have a lot of tasks, so use with
caution and look out for overallocations and levelling errors.
 
M

MikeRMT

One thing to change is that Generic Resources do not have default assignment
owners, so if you want the tasks to appear on someone other than the PMs My
Task view then you should untick the Generic box.
 

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