Slightly off topic but: Resource management

[Kay]

Dear all,

I asked many questions in the past and some aimed to solve my resource
management desires.
As you stated rightly and as it looks to me right now, project is not
ideally suited to manage resources.
When you run bigger projects etc it might be fine but with the
juggling here it is some kind of hazzle when I only want to see my
resource utilitsation. Often my guys are not working in projects but
do single tasks.
Can you recommend a good resource management tool?
Ideally it could read the resource usage from MSP and then I can add
the other tasks.
I need to do forecasting and see when my resources are utilised how
much and how much
person days are not utilised and I can offer to my customers for
additional tasks.

Thanks
Kay

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Trevor,

I can't remember such a thing being said here indeed, but I do know several
of my potential customers claim the same. Too long to explain, but Project's
method of planning ois contre-aruy to what most people call "resource
management". What they want is a flexible version of Project Server's
"Resource Substitution" logic, a system that tells them who to put onto
which task - or even project-, thereby "optimizing" resource load.

Hope this helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Kay]

Who said "project is not ideally suited to manage resources"?

What was the context, which post?

I ask because I doubt that such a thing would be said here.

Hi
on the 12th of February JulieS said:
"
Hello Kay,

Pardon me for bumping in here, but I personally would question why
bother to enter the "Other" task at all. Project is not ideally
designed to capture everything a resource is doing during the working
day. If resources A & B are available only 70-80% of an average
working day, why not just assign them at a maximum of 70% to 80% to
the tasks in the project that you wish to manage and track.


I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.


Julie
Project MVP
"

That's how I came to the conclusion

Regards
Kay

 

[Kay]

Hi Jan,
see my other answer.

Hi Trevor, Trevor?


I can't remember such a thing being said here indeed, but I do know several
of my potential customers claim the same. Too long to explain, but Project's
method of planning ois contre-aruy to what most people call "resource
management". What they want is a flexible version of Project Server's
"Resource Substitution" logic, a system that tells them who to put onto
which task - or even project-, thereby "optimizing" resource load.

I only have project standard or can get project prof.
that's all.
And I am struggling to find out how many person days I have available
from
dd-mm-yyyy to dd-mm-yyyy

And other things

Kay

 

[JulieS]

Hello Kay,

I wouldn't take my comment below to mean "project is not ideally
suited to manage resources". My comment was specific to a question
you posted about trying to capture 20-30% per day resource time on
support tasks and leave 70-80% available for "real work" (your
phrase). My question was why not use 70 - 80% max. unit for the
project work, knowing that your resources had other duties that you
would not document in a project file.

Project is designed to manage resources working ** on projects **. I
wouldn't spend time creating tasks in project to account for each
meeting, coffee break etc. that a resource does during his/her working
day.

In my post to you on 2/12/08, I also asked whether your resources
would be able to document the finite level of detail you seem to want
out of project. I sincerely doubt that your resources can account for
every hour of every work day. It is not a "time clock" program.

I am not by any means a project expert, but I believe Project Server
has the capacity to create Administrative projects that can be used to
book non-project work against. With only project desktop (either
Standard or Professional) my concern is that you would spend a large
amount of time creating tasks to capture the non-project time,
allowing very little time to manage the project.

I hope this helps.

Julie
Project MVP

 

[MT_PMP]

Kay,

Have you looked into the "Resource Pool" feature of project yet? I have
used this successfully myself when managing a group of resources spread
across several projects. This will help you understand how your people are
assigned and where you have some free time to assign folks to other work.

You can find out more on resource pools by querying the Help feature in
project and/or, feel free to contact me and I could help you a understand
this feature.

 

[DavidC]

Hi Kay

For our small departent, I have set up a project to cover each person and
the projects they are working on to provide a picture of how loaded they are.
To do this I have a generic task called "Business as usual" and allocate
2hrs per week or 5% of their time to this activity. This covers off
activities such as emails, getting cups of coffee/tea, toileting etc (Lunch
is not part of the 40hr week). If this is too low for your application then
simply increase it. By then allocating percentage utilisation to their
project work in terms of what they need to apply to each project, you then
get a picture of loading over a month. Add in regular meetings if necessary
unless they a project specific. The resulting data is used by my boss to see
what if any recruitment for additional resources are needed long term, or
whether to outsource to overcome temporary overloading. Using this approach
resource managment can be achieved through Project.

Hope this helps

Regards

DavidC

 

[Kay]

Hi Julie,

Hello Kay,

I wouldn't take my comment below to mean "project is not ideally
suited to manage resources".  My comment was specific to a question
you posted about trying to capture 20-30% per day resource time on
support tasks and leave 70-80% available for "real work" (your
phrase).  My question was why not use 70 - 80% max. unit for the
project work, knowing that your resources had other duties that you
would not document in a project file.

Sorry, I misunderstood or misinterpreted you then.
Thanks for clarification.

Project is designed to manage resources working ** on projects **.  I
wouldn't spend time creating tasks in project to account for each
meeting, coffee break etc. that a resource does during his/her working
day.

No, this is not exactly what I want. i used it now to say:
30% of the work are admin tasks and they have to book it somewhere.
But I do not track it.I only use for resource utilisation issues.

I am not by any means a project expert, but I believe Project Server
has the capacity to create Administrative projects that can be used to
book non-project work against.  With only project desktop (either
Standard or Professional) my concern is that you would spend a large
amount of time creating tasks to capture the non-project time,
allowing very little time to manage the project.

Unfortunately we do not have project server, to my regret. I heard it
can do more
of the things I am looking for.

I hope this helps.

As usual it does.
Kay

 

[Kay]

Hi
I used resource pools and in a multi project environment it is a great
tool.
But it does not solve my issues or keep my manual work away.
But then, maybe I do not know msp well enough.
Regards
Kay

 

[JulieS]

Hi Kay,

Hi Julie,

Hello Kay,

I wouldn't take my comment below to mean "project is not ideally
suited to manage resources". My comment was specific to a question
you posted about trying to capture 20-30% per day resource time on
support tasks and leave 70-80% available for "real work" (your
phrase). My question was why not use 70 - 80% max. unit for the
project work, knowing that your resources had other duties that you
would not document in a project file.

Sorry, I misunderstood or misinterpreted you then.
Thanks for clarification.

[Julie] No trouble. I'm glad you asked the question so I could
clarify for you

Project is designed to manage resources working ** on projects **. I
wouldn't spend time creating tasks in project to account for each
meeting, coffee break etc. that a resource does during his/her
working
day.

No, this is not exactly what I want. i used it now to say:
30% of the work are admin tasks and they have to book it somewhere.
But I do not track it.I only use for resource utilisation issues.

[Julie] As I noted, if you are not interested in tracking the 30%,
you could just set the resource's max. units at 70%. The difficulty
with this approach is, in my opinion, more political that logistics.
If I consider 70% to be fully utilized, then accepting that I can't
book a resource on project work 40 hours per week is easier. Another
option is to drop the resource's working calendar to less than 8 hours
per day -- perhaps only allowing 5 working hours per day is easier to
work with and then assign at 100%.

I am not by any means a project expert, but I believe Project Server
has the capacity to create Administrative projects that can be used
to
book non-project work against. With only project desktop (either
Standard or Professional) my concern is that you would spend a large
amount of time creating tasks to capture the non-project time,
allowing very little time to manage the project.

Unfortunately we do not have project server, to my regret. I heard it
can do more
of the things I am looking for.

I hope this helps.

As usual it does.
Kay

[Julie] Glad to hear it helps Kay.

Best,
Julie