Resource leveling among multiple projects

[Amy]

I have 10 projects I am trying to plan for a program for the rest of the
year. The team includes 15 developers. There are about 15 various skill
sets of the developers- but they are not all held by all developers. This is
to say that on certain tasks, I could swap out developers but it depends on
the task.

Right now I am assigning and switching back and forth to resource allocation
and trying to manually level. This is really time consuming. I am wondering
if I should be using resource leveling. If I did, should I use the actual
developers names or should I create skill sets with higher % availability.
For example, if I have 3 developers that can do Java development should I
create a "Java Developer" at 300% available and have it level against that?

One of my concerns is that I want the developer who does the development to
do the QA support as well. This is a seperate task within each project (all
projects are in the same plan right now) and I dont want Java Developer A
ultimately assigned to fix Java Developer B's code.

Does this make sense? Is my only recourse manual leveling and adjustments.
I have to run a ton of scenarios and its eatting up a lot of time.

Thanks!

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hi Amy,

The Resource Leveling feature doesn't take in account the resource skills.
You have to manage the skills manually.
If you used the server version : Project Professional, you could use a
Resource Substitution feature which takes care of resource avaialabilty and
skills.
<<One of my concerns is that I want the developer who does the development
to do the QA support as well.>> : I didn't try to manage this issue, but I
think that in the
Resource Substitution Wizard, it's possible to do.

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Amy]

Thanks Gerard, however I dont have Project Server...

 

[Roy]

Amy:

My suggestion is to use generics that indicate common skills and increase
the Max Units in the resource sheet. Once you level the resources (I
recommend on a week by week basis), you can now go back and assign your
individuals, making sure you have the developer who did the original code to
also be the one doing the QA support. I also find I can usually improve the
leveling MS Project did, especially near the end of the project when it seems
to sometimes do less than optimal leveling and/or now the skills may not
directly apply and you can assign anyone to a task.

Roy