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How to allocate resources within a group
Hi folks, I have a many months-long project being worked on by a 4-person team. There are hundreds of tasks in this project. I have all the predecessor and successor relationships built and I'm w...
It sounds like you have given good thought to the various options but unfortunately it all boils down to using either a group resource (i.e."Team") or individual resources. Project has no option for an either/or.
I think the best you can do is to use individual resources and then carefully manage assignments. Leveling can help with overallocations but it will not optimize resource usage.
Those are my thoughts, perhaps a colleague will offer other suggestions.
John
Well shucks. Oh well, thank you for the feedback!
db8673 --
As always, John has given you excellent advice, even if it is not what you wanted to hear! HA!
I have worked with several clients in the past who have faced the same challenge as you. The solution I proposed to them was a methodology that works like this:
1. Tasks that are more than 30 days in the future should be staffed with Generic resources. The 30-day window is flexible, according to the needs of your organization. You might make it 60 days or even 90 days if that works better.
2. EVERY task that is 30 days or less from today (or the window you select) should be staffed with named resources.
This methodology offers the best of both worlds, but it means the PM absolutely MUST be updated the project schedule every week to get an accurate forecast of resource needs.
As always, John has given you excellent advice, even if it is not what you wanted to hear! HA!
I have worked with several clients in the past who have faced the same challenge as you. The solution I proposed to them was a methodology that works like this:
1. Tasks that are more than 30 days in the future should be staffed with Generic resources. The 30-day window is flexible, according to the needs of your organization. You might make it 60 days or even 90 days if that works better.
2. EVERY task that is 30 days or less from today (or the window you select) should be staffed with named resources.
This methodology offers the best of both worlds, but it means the PM absolutely MUST be updated the project schedule every week to get an accurate forecast of resource needs.
- Dale,
Excellent suggestion. It is analogous to a method we used for long term planning (i.e. projects spanning a year or more). Near term tasks were planned out in detail. Effort 6-9 months out and beyond were set up a "planning packages". Planning packages had a defined budget but only a very general set of task descriptions. As time progressed, planning packages were converted to detail planning.
I think you need to give yourself credit for the best answer for this question.
John- does project professional have Team Assignment Pool and Team Name like PWA
- therealToomanyhats --
The Team Assignment Pool and Team Name features are part of Project Online or Project Server and would be available in Microsoft Project Professional when connected with either one of those applications. They are enterprise features that are not available when Microsoft Project Professional is used in desktop-only mode. Hope this helps.
