I'd be very grateful if someone could help me with the following problem;
I need a template/spreadsheet that provides clear info on resource allocation over time.
I've got about 15 staff, working on 12+ projects (web design and development) and I want to be able to see clearly at a glance what resources are allocated to what projects and when (on what days). Also with a view to the future and being able to see when more resources are needed (or current resources are under utilised). So, I'd need something that gave me a nice 4 week view in one go.
There's no way this can be a unique problem and I am keen to not have to reinvent the wheel if someone else has something thaty currently works.
Ideas/comments?
Many thanks in advance
Tom
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Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Tom, you might have a look at the Resource Management Spreadsheet here on Gantthead contributed by Manish Sharma http://www.gantthead.com/deliverable.cfm?ID=142961 It is Excel-based and provides provides an in-depth view on resource allocation across all projects - who your resources are, what projects they are working on, and overall project status. Also included are directions in Word. Many folks use MS Project, Project Server, or equivalent as well as any one of the many fine hosted alternatives for this. You might find that before too long, you might want to do more than can be easily done in a spreasdsheet. Good luck. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Mark, thanks for the reply. I do of course, have MS Project too. I guess I am just struggling getting my head around getting this many projects and resources plotted overtime in a way that is easily digestible by others (ie...senior management). I'll try and have a play around with Project...but, any pointers would be welcome :)
Try "Easy Resource".
See http://www.patrena.com/ I find it a bit too basic but management can read it easily.
We built our own solution. Saving Changes...
Hi ,
I am trying to access the resource management template posted by Manish Sharma http://www.gantthead.com/deliverables/Reso...readsheet.html) and I'm not successful in finding the template. Can somebody pl. direct me to the right location? Thanks.
Regards,
Kalpana Saving Changes...
Don KimPROJECT-TO-PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPERT| Seeking opportunitiesSacramento, CA, United States
If your organization has set up project server or you have a means to do so, then tracking resource utilization and dashboard reporting should help you with your situation. You can also set up the client MS project to do resource management at the level you need, but you'll have to create custom reports as MS Project's pre-canned reports are not so great.
My current company and the company I was at prior uses Planview, but PPM systems such as this might be overkill and beyond your budget for managing the number of resources and projects you have. We use it to track hundreds of projects and thousands of resources, and my prior company uses it for demand capacity planning.
I find it odd that the field of project management is very focused on things like scheduling, scope and cost management, but does not say so much about resource allocation and management which is a pretty involved discipline in its own right.
I have had good success with the "resource usage" view in MS Project. Unfortunately, it gets overly complex with multiple projects. The MS Project Server reports and the MS Project desktop "resource pool" features can bring together multiple projects' resource views, but it is hard to set up.
Often I have created a spreadsheet that looks a lot like the resource usage view, but it is at a higher level than the MS Project task-level view. I could create this in MS Project, but a spreadsheet is easier to update. It has a row for each resource/project combination, and columns for each time period I am measuring resource use against.
Then I fill in the amount of time each person is expected to work on each project. I can group the data by resource or by project, then use formulas to search for problematic measurements, like overallocations by a specific resource.
Play with the MS Project resource usage view. If it does not help, it should at least give you inspiration to help you create your own tracking tool. Saving Changes...
Paul AllenSr. Director| KaplanNew York, Ny, United States
I'm using the resource sheet provided for download here. The problem is I want to schedule resources based on hours per day rather than a time window. For example, I want to enter Resource A for 3 hours of BAU, 2 hours of project A, and 3 hours of project B rather than 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM etc.
Any one have a solution for this?
Thanks! Saving Changes...
Prasad VelagaExecutive| OptisolCollege Station, Tx, United States
Tom,
I hope I would be excused for joining a very old thread that is of special interest to me. You said, "I want to be able to see clearly at a glance what resources are allocated to what projects and when (on what days)".
This is possible when multiple projects can be cohesively scheduled along with a feasible assignment of resources to tasks over time as required. To the best of my knowledge, most of the project management software are not capable of doing this automatically, particularly when multi-skilled resources are to be shared across projects. Our resource-constrained, multi-project scheduling software not only schedules the tasks of all projects subject to dependency relations, resource availability and temporal constraints but also generates a schedule for each used resource without resource overloading. The resource schedule shows a specific time interval for each task to be performed by the resource. This refers to projected resource usage and has nothing to do with the history of resource usage. Our software also predicts daily utilization level for each resource over the schedule horizon based on the resource-constrained multi-project schedule. It perfectly meets your requirement and also facilitates fast and extensive what-if analysis of resource-constrained, multi-project schedules. For a better idea of the software, please look at a few screenshots of the software at www.optisol.biz/SchedulingTool.htm .
