Using 'true' RACI assignment in MS-Project

[anand_am01]

Hello,

This is a concundrum that has vexed me for some time now ... particularly in
the context of large projects (several '000 tasks & '00s of stakeholders)

Note: In the following discussion, I use the notation T1 ... Tn for Tasks;
and R1 ... Rn for Resources

Question:

What must be done to MS-Project (particularly on large projects ... with
several '000 of tasks) so that each relevant task (T1 ... Tn) can be assigned
to multiple resources (R1 ... Rn), with different RACI assignments in order
to achieve the following end results ...

What are the desired end-result(s)?

.... To be able to extract an ongoing report from MS-Project to answer the
questions:

A) What tasks is this resource (say R1 ... Rn) Responsible for, Accountable
for, Consulted in or Informed of?

B) Let's assume (quite realistically) that the Resource's level of
involvement in a task is different if he/ she is Responsible (e.g. 100%
involvement) vs. being Accountable (e.g. 40% involvement on Task 1, 50%
involvement on Task 2 etc etc ...

The question to be answered is ...

"How much time does the project require from this resource, overall?

Of that time, how much time will be required for Accountable, Responsible,
Consulted & Informed roles?"

I'm looking for steps & assignment that'll allow MS-Project to provide a
report such as,

"Resource R1 is Accountable for Tasks t1, t3, t5, t19 and t33; and this
requires
(say) 18 days.

Resource R1 is also Responsible for tasks t2, t6, t11-t16, t24-29; and this
requires (say) 90 days.

Resource R1 is also Consulted for tasks t4, t7, t17, t30; and this requires
(say) 5 days.

All told, the project requires 18 + 90 + 5 days of Resource R1's time."

Thanks for your responses,
/am

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

I am sure you'll get a variety of answers, but here's my take:

1) RACI should only be applied to things, not tasks. The RACI should be
tracked at the work package level. You need to create a flag field which
will toggle and indicate if an item is a deliverable or a task. Create a
view which filters on deliverables only.
2) I would create a couple of custom fields: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted,
Informed. Use a lookup table for them. Make sure to set the field to roll
down to the Assignment level.
3) Populate the lookup tables identically with a list of roles, not individuals.
In your project planning, make sure that you have a map (which you should
have anyways) of individuals to their roles.

And that should give you most of what you're looking for from a RACI standpoint.
If you want to take that the next step (which I don't necessarily recommend),
you can figure out a way of grouping by the roles in the new custom fields,
and tabulating some arbitrary % of the work associated with that task. Not
sure what value that would provide you, but it's possible.

-A

 

[Rob Schneider]

Interestingly, I'm working on RACI right now on a project. I call it
RASCI for an added dimension of I for "To be informed". I've not yet
worked through it all and I'm trying to do it in a step out way compared
to how I handled in past.

I'm taking a slightly different approach than Andrew. I have a Task
Field called RASCI with lookups R,A,S,C,I. Checked the box "Roll down
unless manually entered".

My concept is different. At the assignment level in Task Usage View, I
assign R, A, S, C, or I to give the role of that individual for that
task. The value of RASCI at the Task Level slightly ambiguous but at
the assignment level it's clear. (I can see how at Task Level it could
be used if the task itself defines some over-arching role ... not going
there now though).

This appears to give me all what I want which is to document for each
task who is working on that task, how much, etc. AND what role is expected.

I can't yet work out how to get filtered or grouping views as those
functions appear not to go down to the assignment level. This is the
first I've tried to filter on the assignment level (to my recollection)
so I didn't know that this does not work as I expected. I also can't
yet see how to use Project 2007 Visual Reports to get this. However,
Visual Reports allows me to show the total work by RASCI role (in a
pivot table whre I put RASCI roles across the top and task down the
left. But so far how to show the assignment anme for that role on that
task has eluded me.

 

[anand_am01]

Am thinking (writing) aloud here ..., so it may not be very well-formed or
practical ... but I'd like to get some reactions nonetheless.

I agree with Andrew's notion that the first question is, when & where must
RA(S)CI be applied?

Again, the idea of being focussed on deliverables; and not tasks is probably
a good first cut; but often in large projects, several tasks need to be
executed in order to create a meaningful deliverable (Sure, we can go into
discussions on whether each 'well-defined' task must result in a deliverable;
but that's probably another forum topic in itself)

Anyways, let's say that we first apply the RA(S)CI lens to deliverables; and
then drill the RA(S)CI lens down into the most meaningful tasks (... not
because we like to; but because the project demands it.)

Now, the resource assignment of each meaningful task and deliverable needs
to be further dissected to give a true picture of "who does what when and how
long does it take"

To do this, it seems that we need to go a level deeper into the Task :
Resource assignment than what MS-Project currently supports .... We need to
be at Task : Resource - Role

Since the 2 main dimensions of MS-Project are Task & Resource (no Role), it
appears that may we have to find a home for the role under one of the 2 main
dimensions.

To me, this says, either break up each 'meaningful' task into 4 (not
feasible for '000s of tasks) OR do the same for the resource dimension?

What does that mean? ... Instead of Resources showing up as
R1, R2, R3 ... Rn; I'll probably have R1-r, R1-a, R1-c, R1-i ....

Then, I'll have to use some grouping/ attribute fld to Sum(R1-r, R1-a, R1-c,
R1-i) = R1

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Rob Schneider]

I'm probably not understanding your, but I think you are are seeking is
what I'm doing. I assign the RASCI code in the Task Usage view on the
name of the person's assignment. Which means it's associate with what
they are doing (the task). I agree that it's good to be judicious and
think about what is relevant for a RASCI assignment (tasks vs.
deliverables).

I do not yet know how to do any meaningful filters on the assignments to
be able to see, for example, all the "R", and all the "I" so as to get a
summation of work and all that sort of stuff. Seeking how to better view
the assignment data.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You can group on Assignments pretty easily. In Projects > Group By, create a
custom group, and make sure to select the Group by Assignments box.

You should be able to group by RASCI - or by Resource, then RASCI, or some
combination thereof.

Interesting concept, but I must admit that it's rare that I see anyone stick
to assignment level custom fields. They usually just kind of fall out of use
after a while.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

I think your solution sounds a lot like Rob's, assignment level custom fields.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Andrew,

Thanks. I fully agree the sustainability of this is uncertain;
especially for the people that I'm doing this with. Our thought at this
juncture just to discuss and document roles now in the plan. We believe
this will at least head the project in the right direction. Like other
aspects of a project plan in Project, using the RASCI field could fall
out of use after a while.

Re the check box "Group by Assignments". Gosh. In my face and did I
see it? No. Thanks. (but not sure what difference it makes).

That being said, Project still not doing what I'm looking for. It seems
to group on on the value of the field RASCI at the Task Level. My
nirvana would be to group/filter on the value of the RASCI field at the
Assignment Level. In otherwords, each task has many assignmets, say 3
tasks each with 6 assignments. That would be 18 assignment records each
with a unique RASCI assignmet tag and I want those 18 records
grouped/filtered. That is still eluding me.

 

[Steve House]

In MS Project a resource is the entity that is actually doing the physical
work on the task. Someone who is consulted regarding the task isn't a
resource unless he also physically participates in doing the work. Someone
who is perhaps accountable for the task similarly is not a resource unless
he also participates in the physical work.

Project is not a resource time accounting program, it is a work scheduling
program. It may provide input for part of the information required by your
metrics but it's not likely to be a complete solution for you.

 

[Rob Schneider]

In MS Project a resource is the entity that is actually doing the
physical work on the task. Someone who is consulted regarding the task
isn't a resource unless he also physically participates in doing the
work. Someone who is perhaps accountable for the task similarly is not
a resource unless he also participates in the physical work.

Project is not a resource time accounting program, it is a work
scheduling program. It may provide input for part of the information
required by your metrics but it's not likely to be a complete solution
for you.

Steve,

Splitting hairs? If people are in the plan with work assigned (in line
with an agreed role which we can hopefully document in the plan) they
would be a resource. In my projects, we pay for consultants and
accountable people too!

 

[Steve House]

Sure, but if a consultant answers a question from the resource actually
doing the work on a two week task, is he tied up for the whole two weeks or
just for the 5 minutes it takes him to answer the question? And is the
reource's boss, who has the responsibility adminstratively for making sure
the task is done properly, tied up for the full two weeks of the tasks
duration or just for time he receives and reviews the resource's report on
the work? I think the approrpriate place to track such info is not to
assign them to the task in question but rather create other tasks that
represent their real physical work and cross reference them in the notes or
a user defined field.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Sure, but if a consultant answers a question from the resource actually
doing the work on a two week task, is he tied up for the whole two weeks
or just for the 5 minutes it takes him to answer the question? And is
the reource's boss, who has the responsibility adminstratively for
making sure the task is done properly, tied up for the full two weeks of
the tasks duration or just for time he receives and reviews the
resource's report on the work? I think the approrpriate place to track
such info is not to assign them to the task in question but rather
create other tasks that represent their real physical work and cross
reference them in the notes or a user defined field.

Steve,

I think you are brining in a new dimension which changes the point.
Agree fully that accounting for two weeks of work vs. 5 minutes in one
or multiple tasks is a good thing to think about (and I'd bury the 5
minute ones).

The question, though, regardless of what the task is and its purpose in
the plan, is how to record the role (even a 5 minute consulting task, if
entered, could be recorded as a C). In this discussion, we've
introduced the idea of using a custom task field as a solution.

That solutions seems to work almost perfectly; but it appears difficult
to get Project to distinguish (sort, group, total, etc.) numbers like
work, cost, etc. based on the value of this custom field as it's rolled
down to the assigment level. I hesitate going to write VBA code to
interrogate the Assignment object for a couple reasons:
: the ought to be a way with Project out of the box to do this, but
maybe there isn't. Haven't given up yet.
: I don't find writing VBA code much fun unless it really does something
cool that really helps me or the project ... and I'm not sure that doing
stats and accounting on RASCI code tags would be that valuable.
Intersting? Yes. But not valuable.