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Chapter 7 - Assembling Your Resources and Specifying Working Times Introduction Determine Your Resource Needs Create a Resource List for Your Project When Is a Set of Resources Not a Re

Chapter 7 - Assembling Your Resources and

Specifying Working Times

Introduction

Determine Your Resource Needs

Create a Resource List for Your Project

When Is a Set of Resources Not a Resource Group?

What You Should Know About Units

Behind Each Resource: The Working Times Calendars

Modify the Project Calendar

Create a Working Times Calendar for a Group of Resources

Assign a Group of Resources to a Working Times Calendar

Modify a Working Times Calendar for an Individual Resource

When a Resource's Work Shift Begins on One Day and Ends on the Following Day

You can create a functional project plan that helps you keep track of tasks and dates without adding resources to the plan But by adding resources, you can use Microsoft Project to its fullest extent For example, you can assign resources to tasks, distribute work evenly, and track resource costs

You can use Microsoft Project to create a resource list, which contains the names of the resources that are

available to your project Your resource list should include resources sufficient in number and skills to accomplish your project goals While resources usually are the people who will accomplish the tasks, resources can also be equipment, a group of people with similar skills (such as a department), or even an empty conference room

To establish the working and nonworking days and hours of all resources, you specify a project calendar, which shows the working days and hours for your entire plan A project calendar is just one type of working times

calendar You can also specify a base calendar for each group of resources, say, for various shift workers, as well

as a resource calendar for each individual resource Microsoft Project uses working times calendars to schedule

tasks

Determine Your Resource Needs

Before you create your resource list, you should consider how many resources you need and what skills they require The number of resources you use affects both the duration and the cost of your project Too few

resources might lengthen the duration, but you might hold down costs Too many resources might shrink the duration, but costs might spin out of control The skills of your human resources affect work efficiency and quality The way to ensure that you have enough resources with the right skills is to determine your resource needs

To determine your resource needs accurately, consider the following factors:

• What is the project scope? Assess whether your project goals are ambitious or small, many or few

• What kinds of tasks need to be done? Think in terms of job categories Do you need programmers, electricians, forklifts, or conference rooms?

• How many tasks need to be done? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

• What set of skills is required for each task? You want to use human resources who can do the job right

• How many resources do you need to complete each task on time? When you determine the number of resources needed to finish each task, you’ve determined the total number of resources you need to complete the project on time

• Can one resource work on more than one task? Sometimes you can assign a person with more than one set of skills to work on more than one task, helping you reduce both headcount and overhead

You have two ways to estimate your resource needs accurately You can have those who will actually perform the work estimate the project’s resource needs Or, you can check the resource requirements of similar tasks from past projects, adjusting for differences between the tasks and the skills of the available resources Breaking your

tasks into smaller tasks also improves your ability to predict the number of resources and the amount of work needed for each task

Create a Resource List for Your Project

Once you’ve decided which resources to include in your project, you need to add them to your project plan Using Microsoft Project, you have two methods for adding resources If you have fewer than 10 or so resources, you can add them one at a time as you assign resources to tasks If your project includes more than 10

resources, you’re better off creating a resource list before you assign resources to tasks Adding all resources to your project plan at once by creating a resource list takes less time than adding one resource at a time as you assign resources to tasks

A resource list includes:

• The name of the resource, which can be a person, a piece of equipment, or a group of interchangeable resources, such as pilots

• The maximum amount of time per day a resource is available to work

Some tasks might require more than one resource For example, five painters might be needed to paint the walls

of a museum gallery Most likely, they will either work on the same task or on closely related tasks There’s no point in assigning each painter one at a time and tracking his or her work separately To make it easy to assign and track the work of those resources who work together on the same kinds of tasks, you can create sets of resources, each set with its own name

Grouping resources makes reporting easier in some cases For example, if you enter cost information into your plan, you can pull together reports on the costs or schedules for each resource set

When Is a Set of Resources Not a Resource Group?

Typically, a resource set is any collection of resources that share the same skills or attributes and that you might

assign to the same tasks For example, if you’re planning to assign five painters to three painting tasks, you can create the resource set Painters and assign the set three times rather than assigning each individual painter to the three separate painting tasks You have to make only 3 assignments instead of 15 (Of course, you can assign fewer than five painters from the set to a task.)

You create a resource set by naming the set, such as Painters, in the Resource Name field, and then entering a number in the Max Units field in the Entry table of the Resource Sheet view This is usually x times 100 percent, where x equals the number of resources in the set So, a resource set consisting of five painters has a value of

500 percent in the Max Units field

A resource group, on the other hand, can consist of any combination of individual resources and resource sets

and is typically used to categorize resources so that they can be tracked and reported on For example, you might group the resource sets Painters, Plumbers, and Electricians, as well as an individual lighting expert, with the resource group Contractors so that you can periodically view or create a report showing contractor costs A resource group can also be a department or a company You create a resource group by entering its name in the Group field, which is located in the Entry table of the Resource Sheet view

To create a resource list

1 On the View Bar, click Resource Sheet

2 On the View menu, point to Table, and then click Entry

3 In the Resource Name field, type a resource name in a blank field

4 If you want to designate a resource group, type a name for the group in the Group field

To add several resources to the same group, type the same group name in the Group field for each

resource

5 If necessary, type the number of resource units available for this resource in the Max Units field

6 Change the default information in the remaining fields as appropriate

7 Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each resource

What You Should Know About Units

Units indicate the percentage of time a resource will spend working on a task For example, if you assign a

person to work full-time on a task, you’d assign that person at 100 percent units If you want that person to spend only a quarter of his or her available time on the task, you’d assign that person at 25 percent units When you assign a set of resources to a task, 100 percent units means you’ve assigned one resource from that set to work on the task full-time, 200 percent means you’ve assigned two resources from the set, and so on

Behind Each Resource: The Working Times

Calendars

If you assign a resource to a task that spans 10 days, how is that person’s weekend taken into account? If a resource who works 8 hours per day is assigned to a task that requires 16 hours of work, how does Microsoft Project calculate the number of days it will take to complete the task? How, in fact, does Microsoft Project know the number of hours per day any resource usually works?

Each of these situations is governed by what is called a working times calendar A working times calendar stores

all expected working and nonworking days and hours (Nonworking days usually include weekends, holidays, and vacation days.) Microsoft Project uses working times calendars to schedule tasks

There are two types of working times calendars: base calendars and resource calendars A base calendar stores the planned working and nonworking days and hours for a group of resources On the other hand, a resource

calendar usually contains the work schedule for only one individual resource (though it can contain the work

schedule for a resource set, such as painters)

The default base calendar for your project is usually "Standard," the default project calendar for Microsoft

Project

You can also create a resource list as you assign new resources

to tasks

Modify the Project Calendar

When you create a project plan, Microsoft Project automatically attaches the default project calendar "Standard"

to your plan The Standard calendar shows all weekdays as workdays and all weekends as nonworking days The default working hours for each workday are 8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m., with a break from 12:00 p.m to 1:00 p.m If you want a different set of working and nonworking days and hours, you need to modify your project calendar For example, you can include national holidays

To ensure peace among the people whom you schedule, you probably want to modify the Standard calendar so that it at least designates national holidays as nonworking days Also, if your resources don’t work specific shifts, just make sure that the workday start and finish hours equal the total number of hours they work each day For instance, if a resource works 9 hours per day, you might specify start and finish times of 8:00 A.M and 6:00 P.M., with a 1-hour break

Changes you make to a base calendar are reflected in the resource calendars that depend on it Thus, if a national holiday will be taken by all your resources on a project, you should modify all the base calendars

Create a Working Times Calendar for a Group of Resources

Whenever several resources share basic schedule information, you can create a different base calendar for them For example, you can have a base calendar for the day-shift workers and one for the night-shift workers

To modify a project calendar or create a working times calendar for a group of resources

1 On the Tools menu, click Change Working Time

2 Click New

3 In the Name box, type a name for the calendar, and then click OK

A copy of the Standard calendar appears, with the name you specified

4 On the calendar, select the dates you want to modify

5 Click Use default, Nonworking time, or Working time to modify the selected dates

6 If you clicked Working time in step 5, type the times you want work to start in the From boxes and the times you want work to end in the To boxes

Assign a Group of Resources to a Working Times Calendar

After you create a base calendar, you need to assign the calendar to each resource that will be using it

To assign resources to a working times calendar

1 On the View Bar, click Resource Sheet

2 In the Base Calendar field of each resource you want to assign to a calendar, select the same base

calendar

Modify a Working Times Calendar for an Individual Resource

Initially, Microsoft Project automatically assigns the Standard calendar to each resource in your project The working days and time off defined on the project calendar are the default working days and time off for all resources If this schedule applies to everybody on the project, you don’t need to create any other working times calendars If, however, the schedule of one resource differs from others, you can create an individual calendar for that person For example, you can specify the vacation days for a resource

A resource calendar stores the schedule for one resource It contains exceptions to the base calendar An

example of an exception is an individual resource’s vacation days, which usually differ from the vacation days taken by other members of the group Adjust the resource calendar to accommodate individual vacations or part-time hours Because each resource calendar is derived from a base calendar, any change you make to the base calendar is reflected in the resource calendars that depend on it

When you assign a resource to a task, Microsoft Project uses the resource calendar to determine the resource’s work schedule For example, if a week of vacation is specified on the lead designer’s resource calendar, Microsoft Project does not schedule work during that week

To modify a working times calendar for an individual resource

1 On the View Bar, click Resource Sheet

2 In the Resource Name field, select a resource, and then click Resource Information

3 Click the Working Time tab

4 In the Base calendar box, click the base calendar you want to modify for the resource

5 On the calendar, select the dates you want to change

6 Click Use default, Nonworking time, or Working time to modify the selected dates

7 If you clicked Working time in step 6, type the times you want work to start in the From boxes and the times you want work to end in the To boxes

When a Resource’s Work Shift Begins on One Day and Ends on the Following Day

If you have resources working night shifts that span 2 days, such as 11:00 P.M to 7:00 a.m., select the first day

of the work week and type 11:00 pm to 12:00 am, and then select the next day and type 12:00 am to 7:00

am Repeat this process for each work day Notice that the first day of the work week has evening hours only

and the last day has morning hours only