Master and Sub Projects

[Carl Sprake, Oxford, UK]

Please could you comment on the following scenario:

We currently have a single project plan, with about 1000 lines. This is
really a programme of interdependent projects.

We would like to split this file into one master project and about 12 sub
projects.

I appreciate that this will mean cutting out the twelve sub projects into
separate files and then re-inserting them as sub projects and re establishing
the dependencies.

However this should mean that team members and project managers for the sub
projects can then open only the project they are interested in, while the
programme manager can view the master project and all sub projects.

Only the master project will be published and all changes will be updated by
publishing the master project only. In addition, only the programme manager
has permission to make changes and publish updates.

Any comments or suggestions on how to better achieve this would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Ben Howard]

Hi Carl,

I'm going to assume you are using Project Server 2007. What you suggest is
perfectly valid, however I would suggest the following...

1. Use deliverables for project interdependencies - they are much "nicer"
than cross-project links which is the "old" method.
2. Think about allowing individual PMs to publish their projects -
otherwise you might get a bottleneck with a single Programme manager.
Afterall, the Programme is there to make sure the interdependencies work
correctly, it's not there to run the project.
3. When you build the programme, work out whether you need the WSS sites as
sub-sites - if so, they you need to make sure the published sub-project sites
get created as a sub-site of the programme.
4. Check the status manager and change as necessary to reflect the person
who accepts the task status' from the user.

 

[Carl Sprake, Oxford, UK]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for your response. Sorry, I should have said that we are useing
Project Server 2007 .

Since there may be some links between the sub projects, and there are
definitely links between the master project and the sub projects, we want to
be able to see when a delay in one area impacts other sub projects. I didn't
think that deliverables created a "solid" enough link for this and relied on
project managers updating the deliverable dates. Am I correct in this?

If we allow individual project managers to publish their projects will the
programme manager still be able to publish updates to the master project
(which will contain tasks that are not part of a sub project)? I have read
that there are concerns over this duplicating resource assignments.

I plan to publish the master project first and then provision workspaces for
the sub projects as sub workspaces of the master workspace.

Thanks for the reminder about the status manager.

Regards

Carl

 

[Ben Howard]

Hi Carl,

Your assumptions about deliverables are correct. The question I would ask
myself is a project manager is "do I want someone else's schedule to effect
mine?" - hard links will initiate a changes to all schedules. A better way
to manage this is with deliverables, and then to create a filter that checks
between a deliverables's start date and associated task's end date, so show
or highlight those deliverables that cannot be met. For dependencies on
deliverables, create a similar filter - then train your PMs to use them.
This is much easier than dealing with a schedule that keeps on changing
beyond my control!

You can publish the programmes tasks independently.

Double counting was an issue in 2003, but not in 2007.
--
Thanks, Ben.

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[Carl Sprake, Oxford, UK]

Thanks very much for your help Ben. I know what you mean about someone else's
schedule effecting another project manager's schedule. I shall talk to the
team about deliverables.

Regards

Carl