Project tasks have suggested dependency column to aid levelling

[huggyfee]

It would be great if Microsoft Project had an extra column against tasks so
that a user could "suggest" the order in which tasks should be levelled
within Project Levelling in order to allocate resources in a sensible way,
and keep together related tasks.
Often a group of tasks are related and it makes good project sense to have
them done around the same time, but there's no real dependencies that say one
should be done before another. Using project levelling as it is, you could
find that several related tasks could end up being done several months apart
if you accept the dates given. The only way currently to make sense of this
is to introduce "fake" dependencies to force levelling into doing things in a
particular order.
If an extra column were available to "suggest" to the levelling mechanism
dependencies so that the route could be followed unless it was found to cause
unnecessary / ridiculous bottlenecks in resourcing then this would sort out
this problem.
This would be a column next to the current "Dependency" column working in
exactly the same way. If a dependency was filled in, then the "suggested"
route column would go bold and be filled in with the same value from the
dependency column automatically (and be unchangeable unless the value in the
dependency column is deleted). Only when the dependency column is blank can a
value be entered in this "Levelling Suggested Path" column.
You could suggest "Do all subtasks in any order you like" by making all the
subtasks "dependent" on the same task. It might be worth allowing a subtask
to be "dependent" on its own parent task to indicate this - something you
can't do in a natural dependency.
You could suggest "Do all subtasks in a specific order" by simply making
them all sequentially dependent - the way you would currently thus
incorrectly implying that there's a real dependency rather than a "preferred
order".

A really clever function would be to have the leveller fill in (say in grey
or maybe italics) the values of the columns left blank in the "suggested /
preferred order" column so that a manager can then "tweak" these values
without having to fill in suggested orders for everything.

Another useful global setting would be to give the leveller a "suggestion
strength" value - e.g. from 1 to 10 where 1 means that the leveller only
follows the suggestions weakly and 10 where it treats them like dependencies.
Combined with tasks rankings, this could allow a project manager to do some
really clever "suggested" tweakings without ever having to say "A MUST come
before B MUST come before C".

I guess you can currently "suggest" by giving tasks rankings - but that
really is too loose. You really want to say "do it in this order unless it's
really going to cause unnecessary bottlenecks".
Further down the line, this sort of thing could benefit from some clever
technology to compare suggested routes and actual dependencies and
consequential bottlenecks in order to identify where project managers are
making incorrect assumptions about scheduling.

Anyway, that's pretty much a specification rather than a suggestions. Get
carried away when I realise a product is just falling slightly short of its
potential.

Free copy for me if this gets implemented, if you please.

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...980f-080d53512db4&dg=microsoft.public.project

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Huggyfee,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

The option to chose a Priority for levelling is available for each task,
whence you choose Priority,Standard when levelling.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials

 

[huggyfee]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I'm aware if the fact that Project can take Priority
into account - but it's difficult to relate priorities that are relative
across an entire project - if you look at my original posting it does
acknowledge this, but this doesn't solve the problem.

The basics of what I'm suggesting is that we should have another column like
"Predecessors" which acts as a "hint" for the levelling engine. They wouldn't
be "real" predecessors but they could suggest to the levelling engine an
efficient route where problems are encountered when it tries to have tasks
which are logically sequential in preference but don't have to be done in
order (e.g. useful to have them done around the same time to minimize the
length of time need to retain resources, and to allow people to focus their
attention on related tasks, but don't really have to be done in a specific
order).

Maybe there's a better way of achieving this, but I don't really want to set
limits - just hints to the levelling engine.

Does this make sense?

Regards

Simon.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Simon,

Well, you could use a free column and enter a ranking for each task, Then
you could sort that into descending order, then you could enter priorities
in that order. I would have thought 1000 priority levels would be enough
for anyone!

If you really want to persue this, try contacting Microsoft directly at this
site: http://tinyurl.com/6oaw3


Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[huggyfee]

Thanks for the URL - I have posted a brief overview of the problem /
suggested solution. I'm not keen on fudging the workings of the leveller by
putting in rankings that aren't real. On that basis, I might as well just put
in fake dependencies to get the leveller to work as I want. But that then
hides the real dependencies etc.
Basically, I understand Project can't just magically know where dependencies
should be grouped, hence why I'd like to give it a hint that doesn't
obfuscate the true picture of the project.

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Simon.

 

[Mike Glen]

But that's not fudging! The priority system is used by Project solely so
that you can influence the levelling the way you want it. That's what
priorities are for.


Mike Glen
Project MVP