Making resources work simultaneously on tasks

[Elijah82]

Hi all,

I'm new of the forum and I use MS Project Standard 2003 to help my boss schedule tasks in his office. I have a question:

Suppose I create two tasks, say TaskA and TaskB, starting on day 1, and with duration 1 day each.

Now I assign resource A to TaskA and resources A and B to TaskB.

Obviously, resource B can work on TaskB on day 1. On the other hand, resource A is busy on day 1 so he can only work to TaskB on day 2.

Thus, Taks B is stretched on a 2 days duration: resource B does accomplishes 50% of the tasks first, and then resource A finishes the it.

Now, suppose that Task B can be carried on only if both resources work on it simultaneously. This would imply that resource B doesn't start working on TaskB until resource A is available, and on day 2 both resources start working on it togheter.

How do I accomplish this in MS Project?

 

[PDQBach]

I believe that some scheduling systems call this a "meeting type" task (all must be present/available for the work to be performed).

There is no equivalent in MS Project.

 

[Elijah82]

Thanks for your reply.

I understand. That's quite an issue in my opinion. Do you know if this feature is available in Project 2007?

 

[PDQBach]

I do not know.

I have never had to set up a task like this. Invariably, in my work, something needs the deliverables from multiple resources but they do not always have to be all available at a specific time. My experience is that, assuming 6 resources are assigned, only 2 or 3 ever need to be together at a specific time with the others working in parallel on that deliverable and on others simultaneously.

For example, I may need 5 different inputs(and, therefore, 5 different resources) to deliver a report. But all 5 people won't be locked in a room and unable to proceed if even one person is missing.

The other thing I generally find is that, in cases like the one I just mentioned, people are moving back and forth from one task (say, the one that needs everyone) to others so the Duration of the task is not simply the total amount of work on the task divided by the number of resources.

If the work really does need to be done by multiple people then simultaneously then perhaps you should consider the resource to be a team and assign the team to the task.

 

[Elijah82]

Thanks again.

I get your point. However I couldn't group resources as teams, since we're few, all most of us do different tasks. Nevertheless, sometimes we have tasks (like interviewing other offices) which are always done by two of us togheter.

Given this example, the only solution I can imagine is splitting the "interviews" task in two subtasks, binding them with a start-start constraint, and assigning a resource to each one.

One drawback, though, is that if a further tasks is assigned to one of the two resources which is scheduled to start after the "interviews" task, then Project could make that resource interrupt his "interviews" subtask, thus losing the synchronism.

A finish-to-finish constraint wouldn't do since, for the same reason, each resource could interrupt his own subtask at different times.

On the other hand, setting up a "not interruptable" constraint for the "interviews" task would do the trick, but would imply forcing the task in an innatural manner.

One could then make a pair of subtasks for each single interview which is to be conducted, but both the number and duration of these interviews can be rather difficult to extimate individually than as a whole process.