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From: JulieS on 14 May 2008 15:13
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

"Kay" <kay_schulz(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4decd837-2db6-4ee3-a849-73841260c505(a)m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> 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


From: MT_PMP on 14 May 2008 18:09
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.


--
If this response was helpful to you, please consider rating it!

Thanks,
MT_PMP


"Kay" wrote:

> > 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
>
From: DavidC on 14 May 2008 21:36
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" wrote:

> > 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
>
From: Kay on 16 May 2008 07:46
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
From: Kay on 16 May 2008 07:48
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
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