Project management goal: Manage resources

Example One: The accidental project manager   : You’ve been pretty good with Microsoft Project. You’re tasks are organized, linked up, and have the correct durations. Now you want to take the next big leap and assign people to the tasks. Suddenly, you’re worried about the extra views you need to master. Not only that, you realize that you need to add people to your schedule before you can assign them. And you’re also worried that too much personal information is going to be displayed about these people, such as salary, phone numbers, email addresses, and so forth.

However, adding people to a project and assigning them to tasks is fairly straightforward—as long as you start with easy steps and slowly build your skills.

Here a few things to get you started.

• Consider how the resource numbers affect durations     The number of resources assigned to a task often influences the duration of the task. In most cases, particularly for manual labor tasks, two resources can complete a task in half the time it takes a single resource to do it. In many cases, however, simply throwing people at a task can have the opposite effect. In project management, adding more people to tasks in an attempt to shorten the project’s duration is called "crashing" the project. It can be risky way to complete a project because of the extra costs, extra communication, and other inefficiencies that can result.
  For example, the design for a new toll bridge probably isn’t going to go faster if you double the number of architects on the project.
• Use social media to keep in touch with your team    There is more to ensuring the success of a project than collecting actuals and checking for resource over allocations. Putting faces on the people assigned to the tasks in your project is often forgotten in the maze of software functionality. This is where social media like Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube can come in handy, especially for small companies, or for projects during the initiation phase of their development.
• Identify the resource types and quantities needed     After you gather all of the information that you need about the tasks in your project, identify the types of resources (people, equipment, and materials) and the quantities needed for each resource. Also identify any specifics and assumptions (project assumptions: Factors that, for planning purposes, are considered to be true, real, or certain. Assumptions generally involve a degree of risk.) that you use about each resource's job title, skill set (skill set: A particular resource's skills.), experience, capability, quality (quality: The degree of excellence, or the desired standards, in a product, process, or project.), or grade (grade: A rank or category assigned to a material resource that denotes functional use but not level of quality. A low-grade resource is not necessarily a low-quality resource.).
• Consider how the resource capability and quality affect durations     The capabilities and experience of the resources assigned to a task can significantly affect the duration of the task. For example, a team member with five years of experience can typically be expected to complete a task in less time than a team member with two years of experience.

Here are three easy steps to get you started feeling comfortable about assigning people to project tasks.

1. Add people to your project and assign them in one step. On the Gantt chart, scroll over to the Resources column, and begin typing the names of people you want to assign to those tasks. You can also type generic names, like “Team,” “Consultant,” or “Caterer.”
   When you do this, notice that people’s names will appear next to the Gantt bars.
2. Add details to people’s work on these tasks. Click the Views tab, and then in the Resource Views group, click the Resource Sheet view.
3. View all these assigned tasks from the perspective of the Team Planner in Project 2010. Click the View tab, and then click Team Planer.

 Tip    Hide columns that you don’t want everyone to see. Right click a column header, and then click Hide Column.
Don’t worry. The information in the column won’t be deleted when you hide the column. You can always display the column again by clicking Insert column.

Example Two: The seasoned project manager   : You’ve been at this a long time. But now a new sponsor shows up at your door inquiring about a new contract that the company won that involves a project more complicated than you’re comfortable with, with vendor assignments, borrowed resources from other department, and advanced tracking, such as earned value. Now you’re worried. And the weekend is just about to start.

Fortunately, Microsoft Project has the tools you need.

Keep in mind, though, that the bigger and more complicated your organization, the more things you have to worry about when it comes to entering, analyzing, and controlling the people in your project.

• Export project data to Excel for further analysis   . For example, you can export information from earned value tables to Excel, and then display the information using sparklines in Excel 2010. Earned value gives you information about how costs are being spent and how work is being performed.
  
  
  You can also use Visual Reports in Project to create a more sophisticated PivotChart of earned value (commonly known as an S curve).
  
  
• Learn a few new things about human behavior    Be like the larger organizations. They often invest large sums of money to train their employees how to work in diverse environments. Convince your management to train key staff on leadership and communication skills. There are numerous training formats, but they all center around understanding and working with the difference personalities and work styles encountered in the workforce. Some examples of approaches include: Myers-Brigg and the numerous methods that grew from their work, one-day seminars on cross-group communication, and so on.

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