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Old 05-31-2012, 07:38 AM
Tray Tray is offline Allocation of resource Windows 7 32bit Allocation of resource Office 2010 32bit
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I have many tasks where the overall time taken is greater than the effort needed to complete them.



Consider this example:


My friend & I are busy people working on several different projects but we want to only spend 80% of our available time on them leaving 20% for other stuff.


Our latest project is to build an aquarium for my flat. The time taken from working out what I want to sitting back and enjoying is 8 calendar weeks. My friend is mentoring me and has said that amount of time he needs to spend on the project is 2 days and I will need to spend 1 week on the project in total, the rest of the time is waiting for weed & fish etc. to get settled.


He has given me a list of stuff to do and waiting times in between so I have a good idea of what I’m doing.


His time however is not so well defined; there is 0.5 day at the start then the remaining 1.5 days is spread over the rest of the project.

Questions
  1. How best to show my friend’s 1.5 day allocation over the rest of the project without going into minute detail.
  2. I tried using my resource pool to show that we were only 80% available but with most of our projects that showed we were over allocated; the reality is that in busy periods we devote 100% to projects and gain our 20% non-project time back when we are slack. So the 80% rule in the resource planner seems to be too inflexible. Would I be better creating a Non-project time project so that I can allocate non –project time and reschedule /reduce it like any other project?
As always any help or advice is greatly appreciated


Tony
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Old 05-31-2012, 05:28 PM
JulieS JulieS is offline Allocation of resource Windows 7 64bit Allocation of resource Office 2010 32bit
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Hi Tony,

You have a couple of options:

Option 1:
  1. Enter one long task "build aquarium" and set the duration to 8 weeks.
  2. Set the Task Type to Fixed Duration, non-effort driven. (use the Task Form in the lower pane). This will prevent Project from recalculating the task duration when you enter work.
  3. Then using the task form, assign the 2 days of work for your friend and the one week's worth of work for you.
Project will calculate the assignment units needed to spread the work across the 8 weeks. It will calculate a pretty low percentage spread evenly across the duration. If you are tracking, you can then enter the actual hours as they occur.

Option 2:
Be a bit more detailed. Break the 8 weeks into more discrete pieces. So the first tasks where your friend is helping you for 4 hours -- set that up. Then define the "waiting tasks" as needed and don't assign anyone to them. This will allow the breaks in work and be a bit clearer about when during that 8 weeks your work is required.

Regarding the non-project projects -- I personally wouldn't. The advantage of an 80% allocation is that you are automatically saying that there is 20% in "other work" that you don't need to track or plan as closely as other projects. If you want to use 100% allocations, that is fine as well -- and you can view your "free" time by adding Remaining Availability to the Resource Usage view to see when you can slot in the other work.

I hope this helps.
Julie
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  #3  
Old 06-01-2012, 01:28 AM
Tray Tray is offline Allocation of resource Windows 7 32bit Allocation of resource Office 2010 32bit
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Julie,

As usual you have come up with the goods - thank you !

I'm going to try both options to see which works best for me.

Regarding % availability, I like the 100% allocation and review the remaining availability idea.

Tony
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Old 06-01-2012, 03:09 AM
JulieS JulieS is offline Allocation of resource Windows 7 64bit Allocation of resource Office 2010 32bit
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Great, Tony. You're welcome for the assist and thanks for the feedback.
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