J
John M.
We have defined a process for managing resources across about 15 concurrent
projects. As there is nothing unique about our situation, I'm looking to
see if there is a more straight-forward approach for accomplishing resource
planning in project server than the current one we are using. Below is some
context as well as a description of our current approach with the rationale.
Any thoughts on a simpler approach would be greatly appreciated.
- - Context - -
We generally have about 15 small projects (<500 days effort) in-flight at
any one point in time across ~50 IT resources. We also have a continuous
flow of requested new projects from the business units that we support.
- - Current Approach - -
All in-flight projects have a detailed work plan with assigned resources.
All project requests have work plans at a "planning" level of detail with
generic resources assigned to the tasks. We use a resource outline code to
capture the skill/role of each named and generic resource. So, from a
resource balancing perspective the "demand" is represented by named
resources in the in-flight/approved projects PLUS the generic resource
assignments in the requested projects.
From a "supply" perspective, the named resources all have maximum units of
100% (with contractors having availability of 0% outside of the contracted
timeframe). The generic resources have a maximum units of 0% because they
don't represent true available supply of resources. We thought about having
them represent the cumulative availability of the skill/role, but this would
result in doubling the "availability" that is displayed on the various
charts (team building, resource usage, portfolio analyzer). We need to have
generic resources and named resources shown at the same time because the
"demand" comes from both the named and generic resources (as mentioned
above).
One challenge with having 0% as the max units for generic resources is that
when creating the "planning" level work plan, resource leveling cannot be
used as they will always appear overallocated. This isn't a problem too
often as many of the plans at this point don't have enough detail to use the
automated leveling capabilities. But when they do, we have the project
managers create temporary local resources that represent the required roles
of the project. The max units for the local resources are set to a
"reasonable" number of units needed on the project to achieve the desired
milestone dates. Upon leveling the plan, the local resources are replaced
by the generic enterprise resources using the team building function. The
end result is a plan with only generic enterprise resources and no local
resources.
At regularly scheduled portfolio planning meetings, we review the demand
from in-flight projects along with the new project requests...confirming
relative priorities. We then solve resource allocations in order of project
priority and replace generic resources with named resources either as
proposed or committed (depending on the situation)...adjusting schedules as
required based on availability.
Any help and/or insight is appreciated.
John
projects. As there is nothing unique about our situation, I'm looking to
see if there is a more straight-forward approach for accomplishing resource
planning in project server than the current one we are using. Below is some
context as well as a description of our current approach with the rationale.
Any thoughts on a simpler approach would be greatly appreciated.
- - Context - -
We generally have about 15 small projects (<500 days effort) in-flight at
any one point in time across ~50 IT resources. We also have a continuous
flow of requested new projects from the business units that we support.
- - Current Approach - -
All in-flight projects have a detailed work plan with assigned resources.
All project requests have work plans at a "planning" level of detail with
generic resources assigned to the tasks. We use a resource outline code to
capture the skill/role of each named and generic resource. So, from a
resource balancing perspective the "demand" is represented by named
resources in the in-flight/approved projects PLUS the generic resource
assignments in the requested projects.
From a "supply" perspective, the named resources all have maximum units of
100% (with contractors having availability of 0% outside of the contracted
timeframe). The generic resources have a maximum units of 0% because they
don't represent true available supply of resources. We thought about having
them represent the cumulative availability of the skill/role, but this would
result in doubling the "availability" that is displayed on the various
charts (team building, resource usage, portfolio analyzer). We need to have
generic resources and named resources shown at the same time because the
"demand" comes from both the named and generic resources (as mentioned
above).
One challenge with having 0% as the max units for generic resources is that
when creating the "planning" level work plan, resource leveling cannot be
used as they will always appear overallocated. This isn't a problem too
often as many of the plans at this point don't have enough detail to use the
automated leveling capabilities. But when they do, we have the project
managers create temporary local resources that represent the required roles
of the project. The max units for the local resources are set to a
"reasonable" number of units needed on the project to achieve the desired
milestone dates. Upon leveling the plan, the local resources are replaced
by the generic enterprise resources using the team building function. The
end result is a plan with only generic enterprise resources and no local
resources.
At regularly scheduled portfolio planning meetings, we review the demand
from in-flight projects along with the new project requests...confirming
relative priorities. We then solve resource allocations in order of project
priority and replace generic resources with named resources either as
proposed or committed (depending on the situation)...adjusting schedules as
required based on availability.
Any help and/or insight is appreciated.
John