problems with project.,...

[Dave Watkins]

Hey people,

We are trying to write a project plan for a magazine we
are designing and are having some problems getting to
grips with project. It seems to work pretty much how we
want it to aside from sheduling the resources properly.
The problems are as follows: there are two managers
(including myself) who will be doing most of the work, we
are using this to allocate our time against tasks etc and
hence when we should do things. a lot of the tasks need to
be done by both of us together so we allocate both of us
as two resources to each task, but we need to be working
the same hours on the task (ie if its a 10hr task in total
with two of us working 5hrs, those 5hrs must occur at
exactly the same time). Also what is the deal with units,
because surely you don't want to define the percentage of
a persons time to dedicate to a task as this should be
automatically set by project relatively, dependent on what
else needs to be done and what constraints exist.

I would really appreciate some help on this one, cos it is
beginning to kill me,

I bow to your superior knowledge,

Cheers guys.

-Dave

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Dave,

Unfortunately, just by mere force of the mind we cannot change the way a
software works...

I note two questions in your note, one of them I can help, the other
unfortunately not because proh-ject can't do it - but I have an alternative
to offer.

First, you complain that it is nearly impossible in Project to force it to
make two resources work together. You're not the only one who'se gone about
insane on this, I honestly thingk the guys who wrote thsi part of project
weren't exactly clear in the mind either. If one wants two resources to work
independently, one calls it 2 tasks, but when one calls it 1 task with 2
resources in my mind they're supposed to work together. Not so in Redmond
alas!

Fortunately there is a workaround, not the most obvious one but it happens
to work for people like you and me, so why not try?

- Assign both people to the task as you do now (I recommend to assign them
at 100% - more about that in part 2). DO NOT CREATE RESOURCE CALENDARS TO
SHOW ABSENCES, instead when somebody is absent create a task representing
the duration of his absence giving it the constraint "Must Start on".
- Now you will notice that nothing much happens, people will be
overallocated on these days that's all.
- Now when all is assigned, go to Tools, Resource Leveling (it might come
out handy to read some help on teh feature, it is a bit long to explain
here) and CROSS OUT THE CHECKBOX "LEVELING CAN ADJUST INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS
ON A TASK". Then click Level Now.
- Project will now delay some tasks until all overallocations are resolved
and multiple assignments on a task will still be simultaneous.

Second question - I half follow you, but what I offer a a solution is not
exactly what you have in mind.
First I like your question "What's the deal with units". Indeed, when I
teach Project, I try to convince people that entering any units figure other
than 100% is a very inaccurate representation of reality since I don't want
people to work only 50% of their brain or so (in fact, what Project
schedules is that they spend 30 seconds on the task every minute - is that
accurate?). I prefer to say it's a 3 days task, thus it is 3 days of work.
Then when people say I do not know exactly when... I say exactly, Project
only gives you an early start date and a late start date, and a task can
happen anywhere in between - but while the guy is on it, he's using himself
at 100%.
But your expectation that Project will anyhow adjust units because of
occupation on othe rtasks is absolutely unjustified. PROJECT CAN'T and WON'T
DO THAT; it wxon't even try.

Instead, I once again offer you resource leveling - not splitting the guy's
brain (horizontally? Vertically?) but delaying the least urgent tasks.
Another way to look at the problem, but a solution just as accurate as
saying he woks 24 secs every minute...

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

 

[Guest]

Jan,

Thanks so much for what you said below. A lot of the
problem was that i was missing how it fundamentally works,
but having read what you said below my project seems to
make a lot more sense now and fit together much better (i
redid the whole project). everything is pretty much fine
now except i have one task (2 people working on it at the
same time) which is in three parts, each part taking 1/2
day with a delay between each part of 4.5 days. i initally
put a lag on but it doesn't seem to have allocated the two
resources to do any work during the lags between tasks. is
this just coincidence based on the schedule or is there a
reason for it?

Once again thanks so much for your help, you managed to
stop me going insane! Also i am sorry for cross posting, i
wasn't sure if people would read both newsgroups but I
won't do it again,

Thanks again,

Dave

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your warm words!

This time I'm afraid I'm missing your point - Let me try to go there one
step at the time

"each part taking 1/2 day with a delay between each part of 4.5 days"

If that is a fixed delay, just a delay, it isn't supposed to carry any work
does it?
I understand delay like f.i. they can't do the second part because they are
waiting for HQ approval

" it doesn't seem to have allocated the two resources to do any work during
the lags between tasks"

Exactly, that is what my definition of a delay is, and that is why Project
doesn't put any work...

Could you rephrase what is the process you want to model here?

Greetz,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
Project Management Consultancy
Prom+ade BVBA
32-495-300 620

 

[Kristin]

If I understand you correctly, you are having the issue
that if you create a task with a duration of 10 days, and
then assign 2 resources, the duration changes to 5 days.

If that is the case, this is a "feature" in project known
as effor driven scheduling. As soon as you finish
assigning a resource to a task, project essentially
calculates how long it will take that unit of resource to
complete that task. If you then assign more resources,
prject recalculates the duration.

2 ways to deal with this....
1) If you assign resources using the Assign Resources
dialog box, select all of the resources you want to assign
to a task first (using shift and/or control) and then
click the assign button.
2) Instead of using the Assign Resources dialog box,
double click the task name and use the Resources tab in
the task information sheet.

HTH
Kristin