I'd like to concurrently run two versions of an MS Project Plan - one showing resourcing of individuals at 100%, the other at 80%. Does anyone know of an elegant way to do this, short of physically keeping two copies of the plan? Suggestions gratefully received... Saving Changes...
You don't need two project plans to control resource availability. If you're using a resource pool (enterprise or local) you can set the resource availability to 100 if that person is available for 8 full hours of work. If you look at most industry standards, you can pretty much bank on a resource being available for 67% of the time (full time). Unless you're a CMM level 4 company, using 67% as a productivity index works well.
If you set the resource's availability to (max units) to 100 in the resource pool or resource sheet, you can still schedule at something other 100 percent (units). Once I have a project open in the Gantt Chart View, I open a split window view (double click on the small rectangular button below the vertical scroll bar) to reveal the Task Form. With the task form open, select a task. When you click in the resource name column, you will see all of the available resources (assuming that you already used the "build team from enterprise" for enterprise resource pool). Select the required resource. To the right of the resource, type in the maximum units available to work on this task (67% for fulltime or whatever the availability is for this resource or company's standard). If you use the "fixed units" method, this availability will not change for this task. When you assign the work value (estimated work), the tool computes number of days based on units and work. If you provide the number of days, the tool will return the work value. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks Tony. However, perhaps I should explain a bit more about what I want to do. I've set up a plan using 80% resource availability on each task - which I regard as standard good practice. However, my manager (despite agreeing with this) wants to show the team (of contractors) the tasks as if resourced at 100% - so the Contractors don't "expand the work to fit". Thus the need for two plans - one that I "expect" to happen, and one for the team, which we'd "like" to happen. Any thoughts? Saving Changes...
Who estimates the amount of work for the contractors? If the contractor estimates work required for a task using 100 percent availability, then Project computes duration. Whenever I use contractors with this type of estimating, I factor in penalties for not completing on time and bonuses for completing ahead of schedule. When it comes to project estimating, I play the conservative and always factor in project buffers or resource buffers. Based on past SPI history with various contractors, this method has worked for me on several instances. These buffers for obvious reasons are concealed from contractors. I recommend Dr. Eli Goldratt's book titled the "Critical Chain" if you're interested in pursuing some good information on buffers and Theory of Constraints. Sorry, I can't offer much more on this issue. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Are you sending hard or soft copies to your contractors? If you are sending hard copies then you could use the PERT weightings to set different time estimates based on the different resource allocations. You can't actually change the allocation %age in this but you can easily calculate the difference and then input your Optimistic, Expected and Pessimistic time estimates based on the different resource allocations (so for a normal 8 hour day 4h=50% Optimistic, 6h=80% Expected and 8=100% Pessimistic). Once this is done you can simply print off the Pessimistic version and send it to the contractors. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Actually I just re-read my last posting and it was totally wrong. For a normal 8 hour day task you would need to assign it as:
This should then allow you to see the timeframes based on the different resource allocations you create with the different time estimates. If you then incentivise your contractors by adding a bonus if they manage to hit the Optimistic dates and a penalty clause if they go over the Expected dates then your worst case scenario is that they deliver late but you get to save money on the project, most likely is that they deliver it on time. Saving Changes...
