In this article you will find examples of solving management problems using Microsoft Project 2010 and higher versions. We will go from simple to complex. /update corrected pictures/
Our company regularly conducts courses and trainings on project management. Follow our.
1. How to take into account an employee’s vacation in a project?
The summer period regularly presents the project manager with a situation where an employee suddenly drops out of the project. How to properly reflect this in the project schedule?
An excellent solution is to use Employee calendar.
1. Go to Resource Sheet
2. Open the resource properties and go to the “ Change working hours”
3. Now you can specify during what period of time your employee will be unavailable and why.
Similarly, you can reflect business trips, illness or other reasons for absence.
I must warn you that deadlines and work will definitely slip and you will have to make adjustments to the remaining work.
PS. If you are using the “adult version”, then the “ Change working hours” will not be available to you. Therefore, open the Employee Calendar directly from the Project Server.
2. How to quickly replace the work of a “retired” employee with another team member?
Let an employee get sick (it doesn’t happen to anyone), but what to do with the remaining work in the project? How to correctly replace all assignments of a given resource with another?
The form “ Assigning Resources“, “hot” keyboard shortcut Alt+F10.
1. Go to the “ view Gantt chart”
2. In any way convenient for you, filter out all tasks in which the sick employee is assigned
3. Select all tasks and call the form “ Assigning Resources” or click Alt+F10.
4. Select a replacement employee. Click “replace” and indicate who exactly.
2.1 Filter for the required employee
Form " Assigning Resources” is the best way to bulk replace appointments in a schedule. There is also an undoubted advantage of this method in the ability to replace a resource in an already running task.
2.2 Form Assign resources
Replacing an employee in an MS Project
3.Tricks in Microsoft Project. How to quickly find lagging tasks?
It is rare for a project manager to review all of the tasks in their project. Most often, only late tasks attract the manager's attention. Which way to display only late tasks is better?
There are many ways, but for me the first place I will put the use filter “Tasks with delay”. This filter displays tasks that are behind schedule (or their status is not updated).
3.1 Delayed tasks
The method is different. MS Project gourmets use a more complex action: they display the field “ End Deviation” and filter the lagging tasks by it.
Also in addition to method 2 I use the filter “ Date range“, which shows only the “time window” I need (usually from the current Friday plus 2 weeks).
I must warn you: using all the proposed methods requires saved “ basic plan". Don't know what " basic plan” or don’t quite understand how it works? Read the article to the end.
4. How to properly level resources in Microsoft Project?
Resource Leveling– a complex management algorithm of 5 steps, in which only steps 4 and 5 are performed in Microsoft Project. I explain the resource leveling procedure in detail online. Or get it at your company.
Procedure in Microsoft Project:
1. Add “ Gantt chart“: fields “ A priority" And " ” (in the screenshot the field name is shortened for convenience).
2. Fill in the “ A priority“.
3. For tasks with priority 100, set the “ Alignment interruption allowed“.
This is what your “picture” should look like:
4.1 Resource leveling (initial position)
Now you can start aligning tasks using an automatic algorithm.
Did not work out? Very likely. I repeat: resource leveling is a 5-step algorithm, in which only steps 4 and 5 require the use of MS Project. How to find out the “full algorithm”? Read the article to the end.
4.2 Resource leveling (post-leveling position)
4.3 Resource Leveling (Group Scheduler after Leveling)
5. Tricks in Microsoft Project. How to identify employees who are eating up the total pool of labor costs? Method for advanced managers.
This method is intended for experienced and advanced managers who want to optimize the working time of their employees on a project and find sources of losses.
Imagine your project has an approved amount of labor, say 1,400 man-hours. The team knows that the assessment of each operation is always the sum of two terms: time to complete the task and reserve for the unknown (the so-called “sergeant reserve”).
The team agreed that the entire work schedule would be drawn up according to an optimistic scenario, i.e. excluding reserves for the unknown. “Where is the sergeant reserve?” you ask. The team combines all reserves into a common reserve and inserts it into the critical path of the project, fueling the control milestone. See screenshot.
5.1 Use of general reserve
The team begins operations and begins to measure the actual time spent. If a task takes longer than expected in the optimistic scenario, then the deficit is replenished from the general reserve. In a situation where a task took less time than planned, the surplus replenishes the general reserve.
Using color indicators in Microsoft Project, you can identify employees whose work leads to “devouring” the reserve. Close attention, training, the need for double control are possible ways to eliminate losses.
Advantages of the method:
- the team gives estimates in two components (optimistic scenario and reserve)
- the project milestone is maximally protected from shifting
- you can assess the degree of risk of the project as of the date (calculate the balance of the reserve and divide it by the planned amount of the reserve).
Wish you luck!
In this article, I talked about what tricks you can use on your own in MS Project.
Company " ” – your professional, interesting, at your enterprise.
5.1. General concepts
Resources in a project mean labor, technology (Computers and other equipment), materials and money. These are a variety of goods necessary for the execution of work, which is a prerequisite for the execution of any project.
It is very important to draw up and assess resource requirements, the timing of their receipt and ensure full and effective use. It is necessary, first of all, to solve the problem of performing work on the project with the required level of quality, using the minimum possible time, resources and money.
5.2. Types of resources allowed for planning in MS Project
Once the scope of project tasks has been determined, it is necessary to determine who will perform these tasks and what equipment will be used. To do this, you need to enter a list into the project plan resources and information about them, and then distribute these resources among tasks.
How to add resources to a project, plan and determine the extent of their possible participation in the project?
Resource planning begins with determining the composition of resources, that is, compiling a list of people and equipment needed to complete the project work. Working with a list of resources is carried out in the Resource Sheet view, and the Entry table is the most convenient for entering data.
For example:
To add a new resource to the list, you need to place the cursor in the Resource Name field and enter its name. Then, in the Type field, you need to select one of two drop-down list items: Work or Material. The first option must be selected if the resource is an employee, and the second option if it is equipment. Until the value of this field is set, other fields in the table cannot be edited, and after a value is selected, many fields are filled with standard values. In my case it will be a labor resource.
To determine the uniformity of resource loading, you need to open the Resource Sheet view. In it, all resources whose loading exceeds their availability are highlighted in red, and a special icon is displayed in the Indicators column next to their names.
Typically, the resources needed for a project are known in advance only if the organization has accumulated extensive experience in executing similar projects. If there is no such experience, then you can determine resources in the process of creating assignments.
After assignments are defined and performers are assigned to each task and materials are allocated, by going to the Resource Sheet view, we see a list of all employees required for the project.
5.3. Using MS Project to level resource load
Exceeding the availability of a resource means that a resource needs more time to complete its assigned work than it has available. There are several reasons that could lead to this. The most common among them is the assignment of a resource to tasks, the execution of which is fully or partially carried out simultaneously. Another option could be an increase in the workload of the task, which leads to exceeding the permissible load level of the resource. Finally, resource assignments due to plan changes may occur on days when the resource is unavailable.
There are several ways to level the resource load. First, by reducing the workload of overburdened resources by reducing some tasks or assigning other employees to perform them. Secondly, getting rid of task overlap by inserting breaks in tasks or assignments into the schedule, or changing their start and end dates. Finally, counting work performed by a resource beyond normal limits as overtime.
To level the load of resources in Microsoft Project, you can use automated tools, or you can redistribute the load manually. Typically, both methods are used because the automated leveling command only uses the second leveling method listed and therefore typically cannot level the load on all resources.
5.4. Justification, assignment of task resources from the WBS;
The WBS is decomposed to the level necessary for planning and control. In general, this will be granular to a level at least one level below that required for reporting - allowing for effective planning, control, and measurement of individual activities with clearly identifiable resources.
Although a full definition of resources will be possible at the detailed planning stage, there needs to be a general understanding of how this will be accomplished and that this level of detail in the WBS supports the required scope of work.
To adequately prepare for resource planning in accordance with the WBS, the following issues should be considered when determining the level of detail of the WBS:
· Are all activities planned in sufficient detail to enable commitments to be formed and met?
· Is it possible to establish and control individual resource assignments to activities within the reporting structure defined by this WBS?
· Is it possible to determine work assignments while gradually expanding the WBS? Will they be justified both when deploying the WBS from the top down, and when collecting data from the bottom up?
· How are resources usually allocated to work and controlled?
· Will resource assignments to activities be consistent with the formal scheduling system?
· How will budgets be distributed?
· Will it be possible to link the budget to the expected increase in work?
· Can the increase in work be measured at an acceptable level (i.e., is the level of detail in the WBS consistent with effective planning and control)?
· Can data on individual work orders be logically collected (i.e., can the work defined in the WBS be grouped logically)?
· Is there more than one organization involved in the project (otherwise the WBS must be approved by other project participants before detailed resource planning)?
· How will the status of work be determined during the project?
As I have already indicated in my project (i.e. at the project organization stage), only labor resources will be used. That is, the project employees are, first of all, the director of the company, who will decide all the most important issues for the company, starting from the idea (also in our case, drawing up a business plan) and ending with the choice of premises.
Of course, the degree of participation of the director of the enterprise in the organizational process may have a different percentage. Therefore, issues at a lower level, or assistance in resolving major issues, may fall on the shoulders of the organization’s manager. His responsibilities may include both the selection of necessary materials and equipment and preparation of registration documents. The manager can help in choosing premises, as well as in developing a marketing concept.
Using the guidance of the designer, also a participant in this process, you can quickly and efficiently carry out the necessary repairs to the premises, prepare an advertising campaign for the company, and help in training employees. .
- Tutorial
A short introduction
The entire methodology is simply a set of simple methods and recommendations for using MS Project to solve applied problems of a project manager. I’ll immediately make a reservation that the methodology does not claim to be universal, and is applicable only under certain restrictions, which I will mention throughout the story.First, let's remember what is usually required of a project manager. For experienced managers this is obvious, but for beginners (or those just planning to become managers) it will be useful to remember once again. So, a software development project is the creation of some unique product. At different stages of the project life cycle, the project manager is required to solve different problems.
Before starting the project
Before starting a project, the project manager is usually required to answer two questions:- how long will the project take?
- how much will the project cost
Note. I have never had to deal with explicit monetary estimates of a project, and, as I now understand, this is a serious omission. All the projects that I managed were carried out by company employees. The project team was formed for the entire duration of the project, some specialists were involved for a certain period of time. In fact, I am required to estimate the number of required performers, as well as the timing of their attraction. It seems to me that this is a fairly typical situation for software development companies. In the end, it all comes down to estimating labor costs, which, using empirical formulas, turns into an estimate of the cost of the project. As you can see, there is a direct relationship between the cost of the project and its timing.
During the project
Under the conditions of the mentioned restrictions, the main task of the project manager is to ensure the completion of the project on time, and this directlyaffects its cost. Unforeseen circumstances that inevitably accompany any project can lead to missed deadlines. Strictly speaking, the project timeline may unexpectedly be reduced, but, to be honest, I have never seen this. The manager is required to respond to such events in a timely manner in order to reduce the negative consequences. The only way I know to solve this problem is through careful planning, regularly monitoring upcoming problems and adjusting plans.
Upon completion of the project
At the end of a project, the manager usually looks back and takes stock of the project. Most often, it is necessary to assess how much the project has fallen behind the planned schedule and why this happened.What MS Project can do
Despite its apparent complexity, MS Project is very simple in concept. It operates on three entities - tasks, resources, calendar and connections between them. Essentially, it is a database, a user interface for creating and editing entities, and minimal, fairly simple automation (what Project does itself in response to entered data).Let us briefly examine the properties of entities.
Task has a duration, volume, assigned resource and a damn lot of other properties. If the built-in properties are not enough, you can add your own - we will use this later. Tasks can be interconnected by various relationships (predecessors, successors, etc.).
Resource has many descriptive properties, but the most important thing is that it can be
set availability in time; a calendar is used for this. The resource may be
assigned to the task.
Based on this data, Project can make various views using
filters, groupings, sortings, etc. In addition, he can use some algorithm
calculate the start and end dates of tasks taking into account the availability of assigned resources
and connections between tasks. That, in fact, is almost all he can do.
Let's see how we can benefit from this
How to use it
Note To make it clearer, I will clarify some general properties of projects,
with whom I worked. So, we are talking about software development projects,
which consist of several stages. At the end of each stage we should get some
tangible result that will be presented to the customer, so it is important for us to evaluate
the deadline not only for the project as a whole, but also for each stage. I repeat, the only type of resource
what is required are people, and we do not hire specialists from outside, but use
capabilities of existing employees.
Preparing a plan
So, we have a technical task before us, and we need to answer three questions:- How long will this project take?
- How many (and what) specialists will this require?
- What approximately labor costs are expected for this project?
Preparation of the plan is carried out in several stages:
- Preparing a task list
- We set dependencies between tasks
(the result of which task is necessary to move on to the next one?). - We assign task executors
- Leveling resource load
- Balancing what happened
- We do not use summary problems for decomposition.
We place all tasks in one linear list. It may seem inconvenient at first,
but it saves you from many problems in the future. To manage task structure
We use custom fields (see below). - Very often, Drag&Drop is used to manage task dependencies. When there are a lot of tasks it quickly becomes inconvenient. In this case, I recommend not using drag-and-drop, but explicitly specifying the numbers of predecessor tasks. To do this, you can add a “predecessors” column to the table and enter task numbers manually.
- The duration of each task should not exceed two weeks.
If the task duration exceeds a week, this is already a reason to think about its decomposition. I followed a very simple assessment methodology: a primitive task - 2 days, an average
difficulty - 1 week, difficult task - 2 weeks. At the same time, there should not be many difficult tasks. This approach makes it possible to prepare an assessment plan quite quickly.
On the one hand, the resulting estimate, of course, will not be accurate, but, on the other hand, which of them is accurate? From practical experience I can say that
On large projects, the errors in estimates of individual tasks are usually leveled out, but on small projects it is often possible (and necessary!) to use more accurate estimates. - We do our best to avoid tasks that have multiple performers. Only one executor should be assigned to each task. It makes sense to appoint two performers
only if they are actually working together (for example, you are practicing pair programming). In other cases, it is better to decompose the problem. - When appointing performers, we are guided by their profession and qualifications, without worrying about the uniformity of workload for now.
- We use summary tasks to divide tasks into stages. We put dependencies between the stages so that they proceed sequentially. The division into stages is still quite approximate.
Balancing the project
The most important thing in the technique is balancing. The goal of this process is to prepare a plan in which the work is fairly evenly divided among the performers throughout.After the initial preparation of the plan, the result is usually a complete disgrace, not a project. Therefore, we begin to put it in order. Tidying up involves manually balancing the assignments of performers and divisions into stages. For this we use grouping tasks by performer to see how the tasks are broken down. For ease of viewing, I recommend sorting tasks by start date.
Note. Theoretically, graphs should be used to estimate load
user downloads. These graphs are good (probably) for management when they
evaluate the finished project. But they are unsuitable at the stage of creating a plan, since they show
that everything is bad, but they give absolutely no information about why this is so and what can be done.
Then the magic of balancing begins. It is required to minimize the completion time of each stage by ensuring a more or less even load on all project participants. To do this we perform the following steps:
- Change task executor.
It makes sense to do this if we see that one executor has a large tail of tasks,
and the other has obvious “holes”, and he can take over some of the work from
first. - Move the task to another stage.
A task that leads to an extension of the stage, but is not necessary
to obtain the result of a stage can be transferred to a stage later. And vice versa,
if the stage contains “holes” in the loading of performers, and change the performers
If it doesn’t work out, then you can try to take tasks from the next stage.
Now we look carefully at the project again, making sure that the connections between tasks are placed correctly, that nothing is forgotten, and the assignments of the performers correspond to their specialties and qualifications.
Risk accounting
Now - the final touch: taking risks into account. I honestly admit that I have not been involved in serious risk management, but I take into account the possibility of certain force majeure occurrences (such as illnesses of performers, forgotten work, etc.). To do this, I add a dummy minimum priority task called “other work” to each resource for each stage. After resource leveling, these tasks end up at the end of the stage. The duration of these tasks depends on the probability of occurrence and the degree of influence of risks, it depends on the way the task duration estimates are determined, the health of team members and the degree of paranoia of the project manager. I usually set the duration of “other work” to be about a third to a quarter of the stage length.As a result of all the above manipulations, we get a project execution plan that we can work with.
With this plan we can:
- State the timing of the project and its stages. Reasonably and with a high degree of
reliability. - Estimate approximate labor costs for the project
Working with the plan
Once the project is underway, the original plan that was used for estimating can also be used to track project progress. The project manager is required to regularly perform the following activities:- Issue tasks to performers
- Mark completed tasks in the plan
- Adjust the plan in case of significant deviations
To identify a problem area, it is convenient to use various groupings - by executors, by components, etc. It may often turn out that the project as a whole is even progressing ahead of schedule, but in a certain context there is a lag, for example, one of the developers unexpectedly ran into a serious systemic problem that led to to deviations. Using only the average metric will not show this problem - it will only appear at the end of the stage, when it is too late to do anything.
Note. Usually I don’t move tasks on the calendar, but only note how complete they are. I track deviations from the plan by the deviation of the overall project task from the current moment.
There is another strategy - making changes to task deadlines, “pushing” unfulfilled tasks forward. With this approach, you can use another useful MS Project feature - the baseline - to track deviations from the plan. A baseline is simply a saved snapshot of the state of tasks. This can be done at the beginning of the project. To compare the current plan with the baseline, open the “Gantt chart with tracking”. For a dynamic plan where the order of tasks changes frequently, this can be inconvenient, so I insert milestones into the project that reflect some important project deliverables and track deviations from the baseline only for those.
Manage task structure using custom fields
I strongly recommend not using summary tasks in MS Project for functional decomposition or categorization of tasks. The fact is that the hierarchy of tasks in MS Project is strongly tied to their sequence. And often you want to look at tasks in different sequences, while the entire structure “falls apart.” To manage task structure I recommend using Custom fields. MS Project has a predefined set of fields with undefined behavior that we can use as we see fit. For example, to break down tasks into components you need to use a text field Text1 create field Component and give it a list of values corresponding to the system components.
After this, we get the opportunity to specify for each task the component to which it belongs, and, using task grouping by components, track how things are going.
Custom fields allow you to divide tasks into several categories, for example, I divided tasks by type of work: Development, Testing, Documentation.
Let me mention for those curious that in MS Project you can also set rules for drawing diagrams based on task properties. If desired, you can make tasks for different components have different colors, and the color will be determined only by the task property; it does not need to be set manually for each task. Such settings do not require writing scripts, but are done using standard chart configuration tools.
The use of custom fields, as well as the filtering, sorting and grouping functions built into MS Project, allows you to get a variety of views that allow you to get answers to many of the questions that arise for a project manager.
Completion of the project
At the end of the project, we receive a plan in which all tasks are completed. I usually try to keep the original plan as well, at least as a baseline. To be honest, at this stage MS Project is of little use, since you are not interested in planned values, but actual ones. MS Project Server offers some solutions to this problem; it has the ability to take into account actual labor costs, but this is beyond the scope of this article.Conclusion
I tried to summarize my experience of using MS Project to practically solve problems that arose in front of me when I managed software development projects. The described methodology does not claim to be universal, but it seems to me to be quite simple and logical, and at the same time it allows solving practical problems of the project manager.Using this approach has allowed me to successfully complete more than one project on time.
True, there were also failures. This happened, as a rule, when the preparatory part of the project, namely the formulation of the problem, was poorly carried out. Those. the result of the project was not exactly what was required, and understanding of this came too late.
I'm sure I missed something, feel free to ask questions.
One of the most important aspects of a project manager's job is keeping track of all resource assignments to effectively balance their workloads. Some resources may be over-available, while others may be underutilized. By viewing workloads and availability in Microsoft Project, you can evaluate how effectively your resources are being deployed on the project and whether adjustments need to be made.
On the tab Task or Resource View select element Resource usage.
In many resource views, including Resource Usage, resources that are over-available appear in red. Over-availability means that the maximum number of units of a resource in a certain period of time has been exceeded. On resource sheets, a resource load balancing indicator also appears in the indicator field for resources that are over-available. Look at the indicator and task assignments to assess whether over-availability is acceptable.
Note: The Resource Usage view displays resource assignments not only for tasks in the current project, but also total ones. Total resource assignments show the total amount of work assigned to a resource across all projects. To display summary resource assignments, you must connect to the Microsoft Project server and open the enterprise project. If you do not want the total assignment rows to count toward the totals shown in the Resource Usage view, select the rows and press DELETE.
On the tab Task or Resource in the group drop-down menu View select element Resource usage.
On the tab Format click the button Add details.
On the list Available fields select Download percentage and press the button Show.
.
Advice: You can zoom in on the period shown in the timeline (for example, you can change the view from days to hours) by clicking increase (+) in lower right corner of the window. Additionally, you can zoom in over a period of time (for example, you can change the view from days to weeks) by clicking decrease (-).
Labor costs by resources.
Time left.
Resource usage.
IN project center Resources.
Resources in Group Transition select element Load planning.
On the tab Availability in Group Representation
In the table Details
Advice: Availability select element Set date range and then in the window fields Defining a date range select new dates.
On the tab Resource in Group View select view Resource chart.
In the left window, check the name of the first resource by scrolling the screen left or right.
In Group View select an item from the drop-down list Resource Sheet or Resource usage.
On the tab View in Group Data open the drop down menu Filter and select the element.
To see the full list of resources again, in the drop-down menu Filter select element No filter.
Note: Even without using a filter, you can easily identify which resources are over-available because their names are highlighted in red in any resource view. Additionally, in the Resource Sheet and Resource Usage views, the indicator field for those resources suggests load balancing.
In any task view, such as Gantt Chart or Network Graph, on the Resource in Group Alignment select element Next over-availability.
In Group View select element Resource Sheet or Resource usage.
On the tab View in the drop down menu Grouping select element To create a group.
In field Field name select an option Exceeding Availability.
In field Order select an option Ascending or Descending.
If you choose the order Ascending
then by and select a value peak.
Specify the group name and click the button Apply.
Over-Availability: Yes
To display the resources in their original order again, in the drop-down list Grouping select element [No group].
In Group View select element Resource usage.
On the tab Format in Group Details check the box Time left.
In line Ost. available
In Group View select element Resource chart.
On the tab Format in the drop down menu Diagram select element Availability by labor intensity.
To move to the next resource that has available time, press PAGE DOWN or use the scroll bar or arrow keys in the left pane.
These instructions apply to Microsoft Project 2007.
In this article
View a resource's workload in the Resource Usage view
On the menu View select element Resource usage.
In the part of the Resource Usage view where the table is shown, check the names of the resources and the tasks assigned to them.
In the timeline portion of the view, see how work is distributed in the selected time period.
In many resource views, including Resource Usage, resources that are over-available appear in red. Over-availability means that the maximum number of units of a resource in a certain period of time has been exceeded. On resource sheets, an icon also appears in the indicator field for resources that are over-available, indicating that the resource's load needs to be balanced. Look at the indicator and task assignments to assess whether over-availability is acceptable.
Let's say two tasks with the same duration of four hours start and finish at the same time. If you assign both tasks to Gleb, he is technically over-available because he needs to complete two tasks in a four-hour interval, meaning Gleb is 200 percent loaded. But if leveling is specified by day, Gleb’s load does not need to be leveled, since throughout the day his eight-hour working capacity is not exceeded.
Note: The Resource Usage view displays resource assignments not only for tasks in the current project, but also total ones. Total resource assignments show the total amount of work assigned to a resource across all projects. To display summary resource assignments, you must connect to the Microsoft Office Project server and open the enterprise project. If you do not want the total assignment rows to count toward the totals shown in the Resource Usage view, select the rows and press DELETE.
You can also change the Resource Usage view to show all resource assignments and their workload percentages on a timeline. This way you will see all resource assignments, as well as how fully they are used to work on assigned tasks in the selected time period.
On the menu View select element Resource usage.
On the menu Format select element Detail styles.
On the list Available fields select Download percentage and press the button Show.
View the timeline portion of the view. In the "Selected" field . With the added row, you can view the percentage of the resource's total available work time allocated to assignments during the selected time period. Additionally, the Timeline view displays both a resource's over-availability effort and allocation percentage in red, allowing you to pinpoint when a resource becomes over-available.
Advice: You can zoom in on the period shown in the timeline (for example, you can change the view from days to hours) by clicking scale in. Additionally, you can zoom in over a period of time (for example, you can change the view from days to weeks) by clicking decrease scale .
View information about the availability of enterprise resources in Project Online
To find resources that are over or underutilized in all or just one project, you need to open Project Online and look at the resource availability chart and table.
To display assigned work grouped first by resource and then by project in which the resource is involved, select Labor costs by resources.
To display assigned work grouped by projects that resources are involved in, select Use of resources by projects.
To display the amount of resource time that is still available to work during a specified time period, select Time left.
To display the amount of work that is assigned to a resource, select Resource usage.
IN project center Project Online, in the left menu, click Resources.
Check the boxes next to those resources whose availability you want to see, and then on the tab Resources in Group Transition select element Load planning.
To select adjacent resources in the list, hold down the Shift key and click the first resource, then the last. To select non-contiguous resources, hold down the CTRL key and click each resource one at a time.
On the tab Availability in Group Representation select resource view.
If you selected more than one resource on the previous page, click the chart legend and select the resources you want to see in the chart.
In the table Details Below the chart is a timeline that shows how much work is assigned to the resource in the specified time period.
Advice: To change the date range on the chart, on the Availability select element Set date range and then in the window fields Defining a date range select new dates.
View individual workloads in a chart
The Resource Graph view displays a bar chart view and the availability of individual resources. This view allows you to quickly determine whether an allocated resource is over-allocated or under-allocated over a period of time. You can also view the percentage of units allocated to assignments, as well as the availability of the maximum number of resource units.
On the menu View select element Resource chart.
Check the name of the first resource in the Resource Graph view.
If the resource name is shown in red, it is over-available. The resources loaded in accordance with the specified capacity (fully or not) are shown in black.
Blue bars (default) indicate that the amount of work allocated exactly matches (or falls short of) the resource's maximum availability and working hours during that period. Red bars (default) indicate that the load assigned to the resource during this period exceeds its maximum availability and working hours.
Note the highest load percentages during the time period shown, that is, the peak units for the resource.
Peak units are indicated at the bottom of the chart.
To view the chart for the next resource, press the PAGE DOWN key or use the scroll bar or arrow keys.
View a list of resources that are over-available
You have the opportunity to view a list of only those resources whose availability has been exceeded. To do this, select the Resource Sheet or Resource Usage view, and then filter for over-available resources.
On the menu View select element Resource Sheet or Resource usage.
In view, click Filter and select an option Over-Available Resources.
To see the full list of resources again, click Filter and select an option All resources.
Note: Even without using a filter, you can easily identify which resources are over-available because their names are highlighted in red in any resource view. Additionally, in the Resource Sheet and Resource Usage views, an indicator appears in the Indicator field to indicate resource leveling is over-available.
High availability is also shown in task views, but is not highlighted in red. In the Tasks view, you'll have to navigate to each task that is over-available on a resource, one at a time, because the view doesn't show which resources (or how much) are over-available.
Over-Availability Resource Grouping
In the Resource Sheet or Resource Usage view, you can group over-available resources. Resources can also be grouped by peak units, which indicate the maximum utilization percentage of each resource in project assignments. By viewing resources by the degree of their availability, you can first of all pay attention to those with the highest availability.
On the menu View select element Resource Sheet or Resource usage.
On the menu Project Grouping and select Setting up a grouping.
In field Field name select an option Exceeding Availability.
In field Order select an option Ascending or Descending.
If you choose the order Ascending, the resource group that is not over-available will be shown first, followed by the resource group that is over-available.
To create a nested grouping of peak units, click the field then by and select peak units.
To save this group, click the button save. Provide a name for the grouping, and if you want the grouping to appear in the Grouping menu, select the checkbox Show in menu. Click the button OK to close the dialog box" Saving a group ".
View elements are grouped according to specified conditions. All resources that have an assignment greater than 100 percent of peak units at any stage of the project are grouped Over-Availability: Yes. If you created a nested group of peak units, you may have an additional group called , etc.
To display the resources in their original order again, in the Grouping select element No group.
Find resources with available time
If you have resources that are over-available, it makes sense to look for resources in the project that have available time to distribute the workload more evenly. This feature is also useful if you have additional unassigned tasks and need to know who is available for that work.
The availability of resources is determined by the following formula:
resource availability = resource capacity – (total resource assignment + calendar exceptions)
A resource's total assignment is the total amount of all work performed by the resource, and calendar exceptions are any exceptions in the resource's primary calendar.
To find resources who can spend extra time working on a task, edit the Resource Usage view to include how much time (hours, days, or weeks) the resource is available for extra assignments. This view can also be used to reallocate work between overutilized and underutilized resources.
On the menu View select element Resource usage.
On the menu Format hover over element Details and select an option Remaining Availability.
In line Ost. available(remaining availability) check the amount of work corresponding to the remaining available time (or underutilization) in each period.
You can also display and change the resource graph view to view a bar chart of an individual resource, which can help you find users who can work extra hours on a task. In the Resource Graph view, you can view details of allocated resources at a time. You can view the amount of available work for a certain period.
On the menu View select element Resource chart.
On the menu Format hover over element Details and select an option Availability by labor intensity.
Check the amount of work available for the selected resource shown in the chart. To see underutilization at different times, scroll the timeline.
Check the amount of available time for the selected resource at the bottom of the chart.
To move to the next resource that has available time, press the PAGE DOWN key or use the scroll bar or arrow keys.
The article was provided by the editors of the information and analytical magazine "Project Management" as part of a joint project with the Financial Academy "Active".
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Who is this article for?
There are a lot of manuals for working in MS Project. Almost all of them talk about technology: how to use the application, what entities exist in it, what connections are used between tasks, etc. However, when it comes to practice, the project manager is faced with the need to make decisions of a different nature - what tasks should be included in the schedule, how to find the golden mean between the detail of the schedule and the ease of working with it, what techniques are best to use to minimize labor costs for planning? How, after all, can we ensure that the project meets its deadlines?
This article is for those who do not need detailed instructions on using MS Project. The article is intended for practitioners who will be interested in learning about the experiences of other project managers. Below are some techniques and principles that have been developed over many years of experience that lead to a practical project schedule.
Project planning
Although a project schedule can serve a variety of purposes, here we focus on the task of managing deadlines. How to plan and ensure project completion on time. At the same time, the tasks of calculating the total labor costs and cost of the project remain outside the brackets. Solving both problems simultaneously using one project schedule is possible, but difficult, because The requirements for the detail and completeness of the schedule, depending on the goals set, are different.
If we talk about deadline management, we can formulate the following requirements. Good project schedule:
- Suitable for informing the customer and the project team. To do this, it must be clear, compact, logical, and well structured.
- Easily modified in case of changes in deadlines and composition of tasks. It is easy to keep up to date.
- Allows you to control deadlines, detect problems and make decisions about them.
In order to create such a schedule, we propose the following action plan:
1. Decide on the planning method
1.1. Planning from the start
A more familiar method for most. Useful if you know the start of a project, but only have an approximate idea of when it will end.
Set the start date in the project properties. All new tasks are automatically moved to the beginning, because... By default, the constraint type for them is set to “As soon as possible.” After building a sequence of tasks using connections, the project stretches. By manipulating the duration and sequence of tasks, you get the desired completion date for the project.
This is a more comfortable way of planning from a psychological point of view. It is easier to plan first what is closer and clearer, and then, based on the immediate results, move on to subsequent tasks.
The downside is that tasks that could be done later end up in the plan too close to the start of the project. Some people think that this is correct, because... It's better to do everything as quickly as possible. Complications are likely to arise, and completing tasks early creates time reserves. In some cases this is true. But this also leads to negative consequences.
At the beginning of a project, as a rule, you need to focus on conceptual and strategic tasks, putting aside all the non-essential ones, so as not to become scattered, lose focus and not waste resources. Secondly, work done in advance may turn out to be unnecessary, or not done as required due to lack of information. For example, documents written at the beginning of a project will have to be rewritten because the customer's requirements have changed.
To avoid early start of tasks and distribute tasks over time, you can use restrictions on tasks such as “Not earlier than”, “Fixed start date”.
Sometimes delays and shifts between tasks are used.
Picture 1
However, it is better to use delays as little as possible.
The delay value is set arbitrarily; the logic of their application and evaluation is not visible directly from the graph. This graph is more difficult to read. Subsequently, as the schedule changes, the length and necessity of delays may need to be re-evaluated. You are forced to manage them manually, the complexity of maintaining the schedule increases, and the likelihood of errors increases.
If the delay is really necessary, then it is better to add a wait task explicitly. In the example given, after Trial Operation, instead of a delay of 5 days, you can add the task “Preparation of acceptance tests”. Then it will be clear why 5 days are required, who should do it, and what the consequences of changing the deadlines for this task are.
1.2. Planning from the end
If the final date of the project is strictly defined, then it is more correct to plan “from the end”. The end date for the project is set, and all new tasks are automatically set to the As Late as Possible constraint type.
The planning logic in this case is different, but in some sense more correct. You ask yourself the question: “what is needed to complete the project?” Then you determine what is needed to achieve these intermediate results, add previous tasks, which in turn are joined by previous tasks, etc. A consistent chain of work is built that leads to the results of the project.
This method is good because it builds a clear logic of the work-result-work chain. Consistently building a plan from the end allows you to understand why each task is needed and how its result will be used. And tasks don't start earlier than necessary.
Many will say that putting off tasks until later is risky. What if a task takes longer than planned and the result is late? And she will definitely be late, and then the next task will shift and the end of the project will inevitably shift. To avoid this, temporary buffers are added to the schedule. More on this below.
2. Get rid of unnecessary things and simplify the plan
Anything that does not help plan the project timeline is considered redundant.
2.1. Examples of tasks that you can get rid of
Let's look at the “Project Management” task group. It is clear that the project management task is necessary, but it does not determine the duration of the project, but the project determines its duration. If we are focused on planning deadlines, we can remove it.
Figure 2
Task "Support". As a rule, this is a task that begins after commissioning and, as a rule, has a fixed duration (according to the contract) or is tied to certain control points. You can include it in the project plan, but minimize its detail. This task can be easily replaced in the plan by two control points: Start of operation And End of support.
Figure 3
Ultimately, a plan is needed to set tasks and check the fact and quality of execution. This is a very good criterion to determine at what level of detail to do it. The plan should include only those tasks that the RP is going to set and check their implementation. Smaller tasks are moved outside the plan - to Excel, to JIRA, or to a linked team plan in MS Project.
2.2. An example of excessive detail
It is possible to describe tasks down to individual steps and actions, but what does this give? From the point of view of estimating duration - nothing. Rather, it leads to an error, because Each task contains a significant error.
Figure 4
- “Letter to Pyatnitsina” - “Response to Pyatnitsina.” You can safely exclude it from the plan. If some tasks depend on receiving a letter from Pyatnitsina, and this is really a show-stopper, then we introduce the milestone “Receiving a list of key users from Pyatnitsina.” The fact that we need to contact Pyatnitsina to get the list may remain behind the scenes.
- “Scheduling a meeting” – 1d. It should probably take a few minutes. Instead, one could insert one task for preparing a presentation and the milestone “Meeting with directors of societies.” There is no need to group tasks. Instead of four lines - two.
- “Release of organizational and administrative documentation” can be one task. In the notes on the task, you can list who needs to send the letter. The duration of the task is determined by the total time for preparing all documentation. And this information will be more accurate; there is no need to stretch this task over a week.
3. Establish relationships between tasks
Connections between tasks build the logic of the plan. End-to-end communication means that the results of the previous task are necessary to begin the next one. In theory, there should be no tasks in the plan that have no followers, except for the final completion milestone of a project or phase. Every task is done in a plan for something, its result is always in demand.
3.1. Use a minimum of connection types
In MS Project, you can use different types of connections between tasks “Finish-to-start”, “Start-to-start”, etc. If possible, avoid diversifying the use of different types of connections. It is difficult to read a graph with different types of connections. Its graph behavior when modified becomes difficult to predict. The simpler, the more monotonous, the better.
3.2. Don't use links with summary tasks
Let's look at a simplified example of a project consisting of two stages. Sometimes the plan looks like this:
Figure 5
As a result, we have a suboptimal plan. Ivanov and Petrov will stand idle, waiting for Sidorov to complete his work on Stage 1. If we have the task of compressing the project schedule as much as possible, we will begin work on Stage 2 without waiting for the completion of all work on Stage 1. And then the schedule will look like this. The connections between tasks, in this case, reflect the sequence of work of each resource.
Figure 6
If you really need to finish all the work on Stage 1 and only after that start Stage 2, then you can organize the plan as follows, without resorting to connections between summary tasks - insert milestones for the completion of Stage 1 and the beginning of Stage 2.
Figure 7
This way of organizing the schedule has another advantage - it makes the plan very easy to read. This is important for checking the logic and having all the necessary connections between tasks.
3.3. Use a Network Diagram
To verify connections, it is very convenient to use not the usual Gantt chart, but a network diagram.
Figure 8
For this type of diagram, it is important to have a well-organized grouping of connections into milestones. Otherwise, it is very easy to get confused by the arrows that go from tasks in one corner of the diagram to another.
Very often, a rather complex plan on a network diagram looks simpler and more logical, which allows you to quickly check the presence and correctness of connections between tasks. See an example of a real project schedule:
Figure 9
Figure 10
4. Estimate the duration of tasks
Many special and general techniques are described in the literature (PERT, brainstorming, Delphi, etc.). In reality, you either make an assessment from your own experience, or ask experts or direct performers.
When assessing performers, adjustments must be made. Consider the following factors:
- It is better to judge the reliability of an assessment if the assumptions used by the appraiser are known.
- Consider the psychological characteristics of each performer
- Make a duration adjustment. For some performers, based on experience working with them, you need to divide the assessment by two, for others - multiply by three.
Objectives should not include a “just in case” reserve. Adding slack to each task to increase the probability of completing each task on time, say to 90%, makes the schedule long and you still won't meet the deadline. The reality is that all the delays accumulate, and the advances are eaten up. Why is that? The reasons may be the following:
- “Student syndrome” - study the course the night before the exam. And in a project we start a task when there is minimal time left before it is due.
- Perfectionism - if there is time left, the work must be brought to perfection.
- Lack of trust - “if I did it faster today, then next time they won’t believe my estimates and they will cut down the time I requested.”
- The ability to work less intensively - “why strain if you have time to spare?”
Therefore, adhere to the following rules when planning work:
- Set the probability of completion within the specified time to 50%. This will cut the duration estimate from the 90% probability estimate by about half. Reducing time will allow you to add time buffers to your schedule, which you will spend due to the inevitable delay in tasks. See below for adding buffers.
- Resources should not be overloaded. People should not multitask. In this case, their performance will be maximum possible.
5. Get rid of task parallelization
You can often see parallel tasks assigned to the same performers in plans. For example,
Figure 11
Obviously, the RP gives control of the sequence and priority of tasks to consultants. Then, from a planning point of view, one task “Functional block Control” assigned to Emelyanova and Tena would be enough. Having five parallel tasks doesn't make sense. All resources are overloaded, the complexity and duration of the task is not estimated, and the priorities are not clear.
It would be much better to assign one executor to each task, evaluate each task by pure labor intensity with a 50% probability of completing it on time, arrange the tasks in a chain and add a temporary buffer at the end. Then it would be a real management tool in the hands of the RP.
6. Level resources
Often project managers do not pay attention to the fact that according to the project schedule, resources are overloaded. They simply do not set the task of adjusting resource loading to a certain level. Indeed, if resources are overloaded in the plan, this does not mean that in real life they will not be able to complete the assigned tasks. The problem is that such a plan does not tell us anything about this; it contains no information about the feasibility of the plan. Repeated overload of resources in the plan is equivalent to a lack of information about their actual load.
If we want to plan resource loading, we need to level the load. We can do this not for all resources, but only for critical ones that we really want to plan. For example, we can schedule our employees, but not plan customer resources, the load and capabilities of which are beyond our influence.
MS Project has a resource leveling feature. This function arranges tasks taking into account the relationships between tasks and the maximum load limit for each resource and priority (the “Priority” field). This does not always lead to the desired result. The plan becomes too long and resources are underutilized. Tasks are tied to specific dates in the plan, which makes it difficult to reschedule them. It is possible to achieve a more adequate plan during automatic alignment by reviewing dependencies and prioritizing, but this is a very painstaking and time-consuming process.
An alternative is manual alignment by setting a sequence of tasks to be performed by a single resource. This is possible if the plan is not very complicated.
For example, let's modify the previous example:
Figure 12
In this example, it is assumed that A. Ten participates in the revision of all documents, and writes two documents independently. We don’t know exactly how their joint work will be structured, but we assume on average he will be distracted by A. Emelyanov’s documents by 30%. Therefore, his own tasks, where he is busy, are 70% longer in duration, and are estimated at 5 working days. In addition, we added a buffer in anticipation that some tasks may take longer than we expect.
It would be more correct to divide the tasks between two participants altogether and get rid of the parallel execution of tasks by A. Ten, but in this case it is difficult to do. Therefore, we have to violate the rules that we set for ourselves above. However, this plan is better because... helps to control the completion of tasks not at the end of the 14 working days that we allocated for the design of the “Control” functional block, but already 3 days after the start of work. In addition, this disciplines the performer from the first day, who does not have 14 days left, but has a target deadline of 3 days when the first document needs to be completed.
7. Eliminate strict binding of tasks to dates
The next step is to adjust the schedule to the required dates. It is not always possible to do this through natural connections between tasks; many circumstances arise that dictate the need to start or complete tasks at certain periods of time. You have to link tasks to dates.
Linking to dates is justified if determined by conditions external to the plan. For example, the recorded start date of testing; a reference point that is determined by an external project; immovable event. In all other cases, restrictions should be avoided. If they cannot be avoided, then it is better to use soft restrictions: “Start no later”, “Start no earlier”, etc. This allows you to automatically move tasks after those on which they depend.
8. Identify the critical path
If the tasks are lined up correctly, then MS Project will show you the critical path of the project - a chain of tasks that determines the duration. Changing the duration or delaying the start of any task on the critical path changes the project end date.
Accordingly, in order to meet the deadlines, it is necessary to ensure timely or advanced completion of the critical path tasks. To do this you need:
- Pay daily attention to critical path tasks and monitor the readiness of all necessary resources to complete them.
- Motivate participants to reduce the duration of critical path tasks and prevent distractions from other tasks.
- Use time buffers to insure against deadline deviations.
For example, the development of a functional block is ending. Next, the customer must test this unit. When there are 2 days left before the end of development, it is necessary to warn key users that in 2 days they should be ready to accept the development for testing. And record this formally (by email, decision of an operational meeting, etc.). The gap between critical path tasks leads to an increase in the project duration, so this process must be tightly managed.
When setting a critical path task, the performer needs to say that this task is decisive for the project. The performer must fully concentrate on it and not be distracted by secondary tasks. And in case of problems and delays, immediately notify the RP.
But no one is immune from complications. There are no guarantees that the task will be completed on time. But this does not mean that you should strive to set deadlines that are guaranteed to ensure completion of the task on time. As you know, work takes exactly as much time as is allotted for it, we talked about this earlier. Set aggressive deadlines, but have some margin to compensate for inevitable delays. And it’s better to have this stock consolidated, in a buffer that is added to the end of the critical path.
Figure 13
In the example above, critical path tasks are highlighted in red, other tasks are highlighted in blue, and buffers are highlighted in green. Please note that non-critical tasks are also protected by the buffer. The deadlines for them are also very likely to be violated. And in order not to disrupt the timely start of the critical path task, we add a buffer at the input to the chain.
This method of planning goes well with the “from the end of the project” planning methodology.
9. Add time buffers to the schedule
Adding buffers to the plan allows you to avoid violations of the final date of a project or stage when deadlines for tasks inevitably change.
As a rule, we add margin to each task so that we are not penalized for being late. We prefer to reserve for all risks that may occur - distractions in meetings, changes in customer requirements, lengthy approvals, technical problems and personal circumstances. We try to estimate the required deadlines with a 90% probability of meeting them. And despite this, we often tear them down. Above, we already talked about student syndrome and other psychological issues that lead to missed deadlines despite all the reserves that we make in each task.
As a result, delays always accumulate, but advances almost never happen.
The solution is to get rid of the reserves in the task and move them to the general project buffer. Set the target probability of completing a task on time at 50% This significantly reduces the estimate of deadlines for each task, according to statistics - by half. In half the cases it will be violated. And this may not be the fault of the performer, but the influence of circumstances and incorrect assessment. With this approach, you will not punish performers for violating deadlines, but treat this as inevitable.
At the same time, you will have a reserve to compensate for the lag. To do this, buffers are added to the schedule. When tasks are late and push subsequent ones, you use a buffer. By the speed at which the buffer is consumed, you can judge how well you planned the project, whether you have enough resources and whether the work is organized correctly. If the buffer is consumed too quickly, then action must be taken.
Figure 14
There are different types of project (stage) buffers - a reserve created at the end of the critical chain. And feeding buffers are temporary reserves at the entrance to the critical chain, insuring the flow of tasks outside the critical path.
The size of the buffer is determined by the length of the chain it insures, as well as the degree of uncertainty and risk. The classics recommend allocating about 50% of the duration of the entire critical chain to buffers. The project manager must base his or her own assessment of the risks and capabilities of the project schedule.
You need to understand that a project with a small margin will most likely be late. There are no projects in which everything goes as planned. The inability to add a buffer can be either a result of a clear underestimation of project deadlines, or due to a clear overestimation of the duration of project tasks, which happens when we build a buffer into each task. Even if there is a reserve, but it is included in the tasks, the project will still be late for the reasons listed above.
You can read more about this method of constructing a project schedule in E. Goldratt’s book “Critical Chain,” which is written in the form of a business novel, easy to read and extremely inspiring.
10. Analyze the graph
A good chart shows what potential problems there are in the project; what opportunities are there to reduce deadlines; Are there enough resources to complete the project?
10.1. Reduced deadlines
Let's look at an example:
Figure 15
Let's see if this schedule can be shortened. The longest tasks are numbers 17 and 21. 18 and 15 days are too long tasks to be effectively controlled.
Is it possible to detail and divide these tasks into parts? It turns out that this is the development of reports, each of which takes on average 1 day. It is not necessary that their development be led by one person consistently. You can divide them into portions and distribute them among several developers. We added one developer, divided it into unequal parts and got the following graph.
Figure 16
Thus, the schedule clearly showed that one more person was needed for the team. It became clear how to distribute tasks in order to reduce deadlines and reduce the risks of dependence on performers who, for example, could get sick at the most inopportune moment.
10.2. Schedule Risks
It is interesting to look at the project schedule from a risk management perspective. What risks might the project schedule reveal?
- Parallel execution of multiple blocks of work or functional areas. It is necessary to decide whether the delay of one of them entails serious consequences for the entire project? Complex projects include up to a dozen areas. Finance, budgeting, HR, logistics, etc. are being implemented simultaneously. If work on integration and coordination of areas is not provided, reserves for deviations in each area are not included, there is no integration testing stage, there is a high probability of failure of the project as a whole, and not just missed deadlines.
- Lack of trial operation period. If PPE is not possible, then the possibility of a phased launch, by functional area or organizational unit, should be considered.
- Overly aggressive schedule, lack of or insufficient reserves. This has already been discussed. Such a project will most likely be late.
- Project stages or key work overlap, with overlap. In many cases, this increases the risk of rework on tasks already completed.
- If the schedule does not include work and milestones assigned to the customer, then perhaps we have poor control over the work on the customer’s part. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that some works may be incorrectly assigned to the area of responsibility of the performer.
- The absence of milestones in the schedule that signify formal acceptance of work may mean that we do not fully understand what intermediate results should be confirmed and at what point. And this is fraught with problems when delivering results at the end of the project.
Conclusion
In practice, it often happens that a project schedule is drawn up because it is customary, it is required, for show. But real project management goes without using it, because it is difficult, time-consuming, and life is much richer.
The project schedule becomes a real management tool in the hands of the project manager if the schedule is prepared wisely and following certain standards. Mastery of tools and methods allows you to manage project deadlines much more efficiently, with less time wasted.
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