Schedule part-time tasks efficiently

[Ramon de Klein]

I have a problem with part-time tasks in Project. Suppose the
following situation. I have a resources "John" and "Dave" that both
work 100%.

There are two tasks that need to be done. Task #1 (75 hours) is
assigned to John and task #2 (80 hours) is assigned to Dave. Because
Dave is not very experienced it is expected that John needs to support
Dave for 12.5% of the time.

I defined the following three tasks:
1. Coaching Dave (John, fixed duration, 1 week, 12.5%)
2. Task #1 (John, fixed work, 75 hours)
3. Task #2 (Dave, fixed work, 80 hours)

I would like to have task 1 and 2 in parallel, so John spends 1 hours
per day to support Dave, which leaves 7 hours/day for task #1 the
first week. The second week John can spend 8 hours/day. Dave works 8
hours/day for two weeks on task #2. The total duration of the project
should be 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, Project doesn't understand my wish for a part-time
task. The unit for task 2 is set to 100%, so the entire task is
scheduled after task 1. If I set it to 87.5%, then the second week
John is scheduled to work 7 hours/day which is not correct.

Does anyone know how to solve this problem? I can set a task that John
has a repetitive task for 1 week for 1 hour/day, but I don't like
repetitive tasks.

I put a sample project for this scenario on my website, so please
download http://home.ict.nl/~ramklein/Photos/SampleProject.mpp

 

[DavidC]

Hi,

First what you need to resolve is:

what is the duration for completing task 2?
what is the working hours for Dave to enable him to do both activities?

As I understand it you want to show John working for 100% of the time on
Task 1 for a duration of 80 hours. Dave will work for 87.5% of the time on a
task that will take 80 hours duration ( 2weeks) and 12.5% of the time on task
one as a resource with John on that same task.

You also need to resolve how much working time Dave has in the same 2 week
period. If Dave is working for 75 hours on task 2 and the duration for task
2 is 2 weeks (80 hours) then he only has 5 hours (6% of his time) left to
assist John. For Dave to spend 12.5 % of his time on Task 1 ( 10 hours) and
still have 75 hours to spend on task 2 then he is either working for longer
than 80 hours over a 2 week period, or he will finish task 2 later than the
finish of task 1 since he will have 85 hours of work to fit in on a 40 hour
week. That is 2 weeks plus 1/2 day.

One other thing is why do you need to show a specific activity with Dave
allocated to it for mentoring John. Are you trying to track specifically what
Dave is working on during the 10 hours over the 2 week period around task 1
or simply that Dave is allocated to another task other than task 2 for that
period? If you really need to show that Dave is working on "assisting or
mentoring John on Task 1" for 2 weeks with a utilisation of resource in that
period of 12.5% then sure define the task as that. Otherwise simply
allocate Dave as a resource to Task 1 but allocated at only 12.5%, and John
is allocated at 100%.

Hope this helps is some way.

Regards

DavidC

 

[Ramon de Klein]

The following table specified the amount of work per task
1. Coaching [5 hours by John]
2. Task #1 [75 hours by John]
3. Task #2 [80 hours by Dave]

I have set the coaching job to have a fixed duration of 1 week (so 1
hours/day). For the other tasks, I don't want to be bothered by
scheduling it myself. I want that John works the other 35 hours that
he has left the first week on task #1 and the next week he works 40
hours. Dave only needs to work on task 2. The minimum duration of the
project is thus 2 weeks. So what I need is that MS Project defines the
allocated amount of units dynamically based on free resources.

It is possible to edit the hours of task #1 so it will fit the
schedule, but I don't want to do that manually (that's why I use
project management software). In my real-world project, the coaching
job is done on a fixed date (right after the new employee starts). All
other tasks of John must be scheduled around this.

I could also reduce the working hours of John for that specific week,
so he only works 7 hours a day. But I want to have this item on the
planning, so John knows how much time he has for coaching. I also want
to be able to track these hours to prevent that too much time is spent
on coaching.

 

[DavidC]

Ok I see the problem now.

What you have is John on three tasks effectively. In the first week he is
on Mentoring Task1 for 5 hours work in the week and Task 2 commencement with
a duraiton of 1 week and work of 35 hours. He then works the second week on
Task 2 completion for 40 hours work. Unfortunately since computers only work
on binary logic, getting it too understand that the spread of work for John
is 82.5% for the first week and 100% for the second week requires a very
specific algorithm. Under resource assignment it is possible to define how
the work is spread through out the duration. The default is Flat which means
the work is spread evenly throughout the duration. There is a front end
loaded option but that still assumes that a resource is still working a
portion of the time at the end. The only other option if you don't want to
split up the task 1 into two tasks, is to manually modify the resource hours
in the resource usage sheet. A real pain I know since I have to do this for
a situation where an activity is happening over the next year continuously
but a resource is only working on it say 2 hours per week.

Just in case you havent used the resource contour facility. You get that by
selecting the "resource uasge" view, select the task, right click on the task
associated with the resource you want to contour, and select Assignment
information. In that window you will see a drop down box with "Workk
contour". That has some options to choose from, for you it is probably front
end loaded. It is on this view that you can modify the hours worked on a
task one each day. Sorry it probably doesnt give you the total answer you
are looking for but I feel that it is the best that Project can accommodate.
I would certainly split task 2 into 2 tasks, it is only one extra activity
and it should then give you exactly what you are after.

Hope that helps a little

Regards

DavidC

The following table specified the amount of work per task
1. Coaching [5 hours by John]
2. Task #1 [75 hours by John]
3. Task #2 [80 hours by Dave]

I have set the coaching job to have a fixed duration of 1 week (so 1
hours/day). For the other tasks, I don't want to be bothered by
scheduling it myself. I want that John works the other 35 hours that
he has left the first week on task #1 and the next week he works 40
hours. Dave only needs to work on task 2. The minimum duration of the
project is thus 2 weeks. So what I need is that MS Project defines the
allocated amount of units dynamically based on free resources.

It is possible to edit the hours of task #1 so it will fit the
schedule, but I don't want to do that manually (that's why I use
project management software). In my real-world project, the coaching
job is done on a fixed date (right after the new employee starts). All
other tasks of John must be scheduled around this.

I could also reduce the working hours of John for that specific week,
so he only works 7 hours a day. But I want to have this item on the
planning, so John knows how much time he has for coaching. I also want
to be able to track these hours to prevent that too much time is spent
on coaching.

 

[Ramon de Klein]

I did use contour and I can set the hours manually so the schedule
fits. But if for some reason a task moves and I need to level
resources, then it is messed up again. I am also considering using
Open Workbench that is capable of doing this kind of planning. It
seems to have better planning features, but the GUI is less usable :-(

BTW: Thanks for your in-depth analysis. It is highly appreciated!