assign team member to tasks based on completion of previous tasks

[6ftAndClean]

I am currently trying to work out several different project plans based around differing levels of staffing. There is a fixed amount of work to do and I wish to see how the end date for the whole project varies for each scenario.

I have a team member/resource (me) who is assigned to several tasks that follow concurrently from each other (as predecessors) over a couple of months. This is fine.

I also have another sequence of tasks that take place at the same time (but go on for a lot longer) which are resourced by a variable number of other team members. The greater the number of team members the faster the work is done. No suprises there!

The difficulty I face is:
- when I have finnished my tasks I will then be free to assist the rest of the team with theirs. How can I model this in Project? I need some mechanism for conditionally assigning myself to a series of task based on a predecessing task.

In 'View', 'Track Usage' it looks like one may be able to set predecessors per resource but this does not seem to be possible. This is, in effect, what I need to be able to do.

Any thoughts?

 

[PDQBach]

My thought: there is no simple way to dynamically adjust a resource's participation in individual tasks automagically.

Each approach I looked at forced too much manual intervention in the development of the optimized schedule.

So ... if I were you: create the schedule without the "I'll assist here" tasks and choose the best schedule for your project. Then, when the project runs late, you simply assign yourself to the tasks where your impact will have the greatest improvement.

Any non-trivial project will have a variety of tasks on the critical path and those critical path tasks will change from week to week as deliverables come in ahead/ontime/late. The tasks you assign yourself to now will probably not be the ones you actually work on later in the project.

 

[6ftAndClean]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Unfortunately, at this time, I primarily want Project to assist me identify the best of several possible plans.

The tasks specific to me come to an end fairly early on in the project. Naturally, I would then expect to participate in whatever tasks are remaining to be done, after all they make up more than 75% of the overall work of the project.

Manually changing resource assignments for each scenario is a fools game as, with each change in resource to the main set of tasks, the Gantt chart stretches and contracts considerably. This means that the point at which I can join in with these tasks varies too.

Maybe this is something the MS Project just can't cope with. Seems a shame really as this is 90% of what I wanted it to do for me.

On a slightly different note, am I also in a no win situation when wanting to change resources mid task (e.g. a task lasting a month will be done by one team member up to a certain date and then another tema member will take over from the first to complete the task). How can this be nicely achieved in Project without having to manually split the task?

Thanks again,

Nick

 

[PDQBach]

Here's how I do it:

1. Create task and assign original resource.
2. Post regular actual work.

When it's time to do the substitution ...
1. View | Gantt
2. Click on the task
3. Click on Window | Split
4. In the bottom half RightMouseButton on the gray area
5. Click on Resource Work
6. Change the task type to Fixed Duration and click on OK
7. In the first blank line below the resource currently assigned, select the new resource; for "work" use the departing resources "rem. work".
8. On the line for the resource currently assigned, set "rem. work" to 0.
9. Click on ok.