Multiple people want to manage the same project?

[jem]

I have two situations in which multiple people want to own/be the PM for a
project.
Situation 1: A team has a large project with the Project Manager delegating
some tasks to a lead on his team. At times, the PM makes changes to the
schedule and republishes task assignments. Another day, his lead may make
changes and republish task assignments. These two people want to receive
PWA updates for the tasks they have changes/republished.
1) Does this republish not make the last person publishing the project
the owner/PM for all tasks?
2) Will the last person publishing the project be the one to get the
PWA time updates?
3) Is it possible to assign PM ownership at the task level rather than
project level? If so, if both
people happen to change the same task and time is posted between
the two updates, how would
project know which to post. For example: PM 1 changes Task A and
republishes on Monday, and the resource posts 2 hours of time to it
and updates so PM 1 gets the email notification. PM 2 changes Task
A on Tuesday and republishes that day. The resource posts 3 hours time for
that day and the PWA update goes to PM2. On Wed, both PM 1 and PM 2
try to update the
project. Will both the 2 hours and 3 hours post? Or only one of
these?

Situation 2: Similar to the first one. One project wants to have multiple
people changing/managing tasks within a project schedule. They want to
break the tasks up across several people and have each person make their
changes, republish, and get the PWA email update notifications, then each
will post the actual hours to their respective set of tasks.

Are these situations possible? I thought a project could have only one
owner/PM at a time? Thanks for any assistance.

jem

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

jem --

The simple answer to your lengthy question is, yes, you can have multiple
managers for a project. If several managers will each manage individual
tasks in a project, then here is the process for them to follow to set them
as managers of the individual tasks:

1. PM#1 opens the project and initially publishes the project using
Collaborate - Publish - All Information
2. PM#1 saves and closes the project
3. PM#2 opens the project
4. PM#2 selects the tasks that he/she will manage
5. PM#2 clicks Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments, selects the
"Become the manager for these assignments" option, and clicks OK
6. PM#2 saves and closes the project

Each successive manager should repeat steps #3-6. In the above process,
steps #1-2 set the first PM as the manager of all tasks in the project. In
steps #3-6, the process changes the manager for the selected tasks to the
new manager who completes these steps, and redirects all task updates for
these tasks to the new manager. This includes both pending task updates for
the selected task and all future task updates for the selected tasks.

In addition to being able to control the manager(s) of a project as the task
level, it is even possible to control the managers of the project at the
resource level. If you need to do this, the managers of the project should
complete the following steps:

1. PM#1 opens the project and initially publishes the project using
Collaborate - Publish - All Information
2. PM#1 saves and closes the project
3. PM#2 opens the project and clicks View - Resource Usage
4. PM#2 selects the resources whose tasks assignments he/she will manage
5. PM#2 clicks Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments, selects the
"Become the manager for these assignments" option, and clicks OK
6. PM#2 saves and closes the project

Each successive manager should repeat steps #3-6. In the above process,
steps #1-2 set the first PM as the manager of all tasks in the project. In
steps #3-6, the process changes the manager for the selected resources' task
assignments to the new manager who completes these steps, and redirects all
task updates from these resources to the new manager. This includes both
pending task updates for the selected tasks as well as all future task
updates for the selected tasks.

Hope this helps.

 

[John Sitka]

If they are working as a true equals and fully aware of each other.
Then they could connect using a single Project Server account.

 

[jem]

Dale,

Thanks so much. This is indeed a great help. I apologize for the length of
my first question, but I just wanted to try to explain my problem in detail.

I have one follow up question please. In testing your instructions, I found
only one thing that I think I might know the answer to, but don't want to
give our PM's wrong information so wanted to check with the experts first.

Here goes:
1. I published a project with four tasks, with myself as the Project
Manager.
2. I had someone else take over PM duties on two of the tasks (# 3 and 4).
3. I then deleted Task 3 and republished. In PWA, the task was marked as
removed with the X by it,
however, the total hours of the tasks remained the same. So I have a
discrepancy between the project view
and the task view. The project view shows 24 hours. The View My tasks
view has 32 hours. Is this
because I was no longer the PM on Task 3? If so, I'm not sure why it
allowed me to make the deletion and
changed at the project view, but not at the task view?

Thanks again very much!

jem

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

jem --

I'm not sure what you mean in step #3 when you say you deleted Task 3.
Please explain further exactly what you did to perform this deletion. Let
us know.

 

[jem]

Dale,

I opened the project in Project Pro, and chose Edit - Delete Task. I then
republished the project, which I thought should remove the task from the
timesheet view.

Thanks.
jem

 

[John Sitka]

it does it marks it as deleted,
Think of the user experience. He had just worked 20 hours overtime to take a big chunk out of the work
required for that task. Is it better to tell him it's deleted or to just have it dissappear?

 

[jem]

John,

Thanks for the reply. I understand why it would mark the task as deleted
and leave it on the timesheet. I just don't understand why the hours would
still show in the total. So rather than showing 24 hours total for 3
remaining tasks (as the project schedule does), the timesheet view shows 32
hours total work.

Thanks.
jem

 

[John Sitka]

I haven't proved this out but maybe presentation layer calculation.
That is a status of delete is visually presented as such but the task is still part of
the task set. Just a hunch.