Resourcing

Hi Andrew,

Following the project management training session last week, i attempted to fix my MS Project problem (by removing effort driven and fixing durations of tasks) but alas i cant get past our impass that when i add resources to my projects, it starts altering the duration, or work units (depending which is fixed).

To help you understand the problem a little better, we have a proposal spreadsheet in the office that we use as our own Work Breakdown Structure, where we enter the tasks, expected hours, and costs for each deliverable for a consulting project. We then put it into MS Project to give us the detailed scheduling - this is then sent to the client for approval.

However, we also want to add in the work units in Project, so we can track throughout the project, the ongoing costs and the effects on this of any delays as it progresses.

However, when we add work units to the project plan, then add resources, Project alters the work units (which we need the same as this was agreed in the proposal/WBS).

I understand that Project anticipates, that when we add resources it assumes how much time each person will dedicate to each task. But we need to add this in manually in order to keep the total baseline costs the same as in our proposal.

So unless you can think of another way, we need to find a way of entering specific work units for each task for each resource, without it affecting set durations. Can this be done in the resource usage sheet perhaps someway? If not i believe we may be stuffed!

Best regards,

Stuart