Ok guys .. this is what I think is a pretty difficult question ...but here goes ... U guys with experience may be full of ideas. I need to do a report for my boss on the current state of resources in the department. I have already done the audit i.e recorded what everybody is doing both operational and project related, of varying degrees of complexity. I need a way to concisely represent this information so it could show the resorces that are more exhausted than others. Saving Changes...
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I assume that your management wants to know both what resources the organization has and what those resources are currently engaged in. Do you know if they're trying to solve a particular problem with this data or do they just want to analyze it? Regardless, I've had luck with bubble charts. In case you haven't used one, here's a brief explanation: the chart has 2 axes and typically 4 quadrants. For resource allocation you could have one axis represent resource utilization (say, from 0% to 100%). The other axis could represent anything you want, say salary level (though you probably don't know this) or perhaps level of employment. You can then plot circles on the graph colored to show the type of resource (red for developer, orange for PM, etc). Some combination of factors should work. Bubble charts look cool and, in my experience, executives love them. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks Ed ...that sounds like a good idea ... Yes this information is just for analysis purposes ...basically see if any are near exhaustion and new assignments could be transferred to others ....
All: Other ideas are welcome Saving Changes...
Ramakrishna CH PMPDelivery Manager| Value MomentumHackensack, Nj, United States
A resource Graph is some thing you might want to consider. As some one pointed out, good use of colors for exposing the segregation amongst different resources for load, expensiveness for company, experience level, potential for growth etc.would make any sr. executive help understand the higher level picture and gain an incite into the available resource pool, for him/her to make relevant decisions. Saving Changes...
Andrew MakarProgram Manager| AMAKAR LLCOakland Township, Mi, United States
I had a similar challenge when I was managing a PMO and needed to depict our current resource allocation across the portfolio.
I worked with a fellow PM to develop a Resource Management Model in MS-Project.
Here is the first article that describes the tool:
The best way to show this depends somewhat on the level of detail of the information you have collected.
The best way to look for resource allocations is to look at them in detail, time-period by time-period. I usually look at resource allocations on a week-by-week basis, but month-by-month might be better. This data can show you a brief peak in usage that could cause problems.
Your data might be more high level, showing their overall allocations. You might not have detailed data about what their allocations would be for the second week in June, for instance.
Either way, I usually use tables to show the detailed data. I agree that a chart showing level-in-the-organization vs. allocation percentage could be very helpful. If you can label each point with a person's name, that could be useful.
For smaller teams, a table is essential. I usually have a separate row for each resource. Columns that might be useful include:
* Average allocated time (%)
* Peak allocated time (%) -- the allocation percentage for the week where they are most heavily worked
* Date where the peak occurred
* # of vacation days (these typically vary by seniority at the places I work) -- annual or the number that fall during the project term, depending on the type of analysis I am doing
* % of time allocated to support or non-project activities (sometimes this is multiple columns)
* % of time allocated to project work (sometimes one column for each major project, to help represent which project each person is working on) -- sometimes I use total work hours instead of a percentage
Depending on the data that I have available, some of these columns might be impossible to figure. Also, depending on the senior executive's needs, some of these columns might not be useful.
Behind the scenes, I create a time-phased list of what everyone is working on in each time period. The "Resource Allocation" sheet in MS Project is a good example of this view. Every assignment (resource/task combination) is a separate row. I group the assignments by person assigned. Each column is a time period (usually a week). The cells in the middle show the number of work-hours that week spent on that task. Sometimes I add in data for each time period for each resource, like:
* Total number of work-hours available that week (varies by holiday and vacation calendar)
* Total work-hours assigned that week
* Overallocation (# of hours)
* Underallocation (# of hours)
With these tools, I can answer almost any question someone can come up with about resource use. The detailed resource usage spreadsheet is what I use for actually doing the resource leveling. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks a million guys ...Alex, would it be possible that you could post an outline of the detailed resource usage spreadsheet so i can get an idea of the layout ...Thanks Saving Changes...
Normally, I generate these views out of MS Project. I do not have a simple MS Excel version to post. You can see the layout of these types of views at this Microsoft site, where they are explaining the different resource usage views available in the tool:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms423156.aspx
Scroll down towards the bottom to see the time-phased list of activities and the corresponding work. Only the "work" row is listed there, but you can right-click the row heading in the central area of MS Project and add in more information, like overallocation amount, total work assigned to the resource, and so on.
One of the best reasons to stop managing your schedules in MS Excel and to move up to a tool like Primavera or MS Project is that they can easily produce views like these. Trying to extract this data out of MS Excel using linked spreadsheets is a nightmare.
If an executive needs a pretty report, then I usually copy-and-paste rows and columns out of my scheduling tool and into Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks again Alex, tbh the information is pretty high level .... basically what the resources are working on..... dates projects are targeted to and to a degree the complexity of each project and priority. Structured project management is quite new to the organisation ...MS will be used but many on-going projects currently have no well defined schedules etc. So if i was to set these up on project i reckon i wouldnt be getting the desired effects as resource monitoring hasnt been conducted for the duration of these projects. Thats is why i am currently trying excel. Saving Changes...
Thanks for the clarification. For a high-level view, I usually look at resource use by month or by quarter. Have 4 or 12 columns per year, and a separate row for each project. Record time allocated to each project for each month/quarter.
You can then do horizontal totals to see how much time is allocated to each project across the whole period. Vertical totals show how much time is allocated to each month/quarter, and will give you a sense of overallocation or underallocation.
If you structure the data well, with one column for "person" and another column for "project", you can resort a grid like this to be either project-centered or resource-centered. It can be a very useful tool to see time spent on a particular project, and to see resource conflicts.
Many times it is easier to do this in Excel than in MS Project. MS Project can be quite rigid in the way that it handles tasks and assignments. If you understand MS Project thoroughly, though, you can quickly set up these grids and generate multiple views of the same data. If you ever want to convert from Excel to MS Project, let me know and I would be happy to provide some pointers. Saving Changes...
