What's the best way to use Microsoft Project for multi-project Resource Management?
Chris YoungIS Project Director Manulife Investments PMO| Manulife FinancialWaterloo, Ontario, Canada
Hi,
I'm trying to get some input on the best way to use Microsoft Project (stand-alone, not Project Server) for resource management across multiple projects. Think consulting--I have many resources that I need to constantly manage who's on what project, for what length of time, at what %, etc. Seems intuitive to use MS Project (vs. Excel which my colleagues are currently using...blah!), but I'd love to hear stories from someone that is using it sucessfully for this (rather than me fumble through it).
Any takers? Does anyone use MS Project to manage resource allocation to projects? (My initial throughts are just making each project a task, and using work assignments).
Thanks!
Chris Saving Changes...
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Andy JordanPresident| Roffensian Consulting S.A.Cherry Grove, AB, Canada
Chris, if you only need basic information then a row per project will work, but you can also use a resource pool with the stand-alone project and that will let you hook in the full project plans for the engagements. In fact, even without Project Central / Server you can share that resource pool across multiple users as long as it is on a shared drive that everyone can access. It isn't a perfect solution and can be some effort to set up and maintain - you need to make sure that PMs use the resource pool rather than creating their own to avoid duplication of resources, but I have seen it work quite well. If not everyone can access a shared drive then you may be able to work off of copies of their plans with your own resource pool just for tracking of availability, but it can be harder as you have to control potential problems like different spellings of names, etc which will create duplicate resource entries. Andy Jordan, President, Roffensian Consulting Inc, www.roffensian.com Saving Changes...
Hi Chris, the other thing you should consider is who will be making the changes to your resource plan. MSProject is fine if it will be you or the PMs making the changes. If it's someone without the MSP roject application or skills, then you may be better off with something like Excel. I wouldn't shy away from Excel - you can control the selection & entry of resource names much better than with MSProject. When it's time to view resource load, or project resource assignments, you can be a little more confident in your results. Intuitively MS Project may seem like the better choice, but having seen how our organization uses Excel to manage 50-50 in different depts, and on different projects, I wouldn't discount Excel too soon :). Saving Changes...
