Need help calculating Resource Availability

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I have been asked by a client to help come up with a calculation for resource availability based on some given data. By resource, I mean a project manager. We need to determine an individual PM's availability based on the given data. I'm not a project management guy so I'm hoping someone here can steer me in the right direction.

The data we have is in the following form, with options in parenthesis:
PM Name, # Of Projects, Project Size (small, medium, large), Project Phase (submitted, proposal development, initiation, planning, executing, closout), Project Start Date, Project End Date, Project Work % Complete

Is there a way to quantify this data and come up with a calculation for Resource Availability? I told the client they need to assign some sort of numeric value to each of the relevant options in order to be able to calculate overall availability. But they want help with that too.

Are there any standard practices or examples for this sort of thing? Any help would be great. Thanks!

 

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Anyone?

 

[FietsenMaker]

It seems to me like an indirect and high level way of determining resource availability. I would only use such a method to get a global overview of availability during pre-planning. Using a resource driven schedule is an easier way imo.
Having said that, it is an interesting question from an estimating point of view.

So, assuming that the project managers are multi-tasking their projects (working several projects at the same time) I would use the following approach:

[ul]
[li]Assign a typical number of hours (work) to the project size first.[/li]
[li]Using the project phases, develop a typical distribution of the work and duration of these phases, e.g.:[/li]
[ul]
[li]submitted: 2% work, 5% lead time[/li]
[li]proposal development: 5%, 10% lead time[/li]
[li]initiation: 10% work, 10% lead time [/li]
[li]planning: 15% work, 15% lead time [/li]
[li]execution: 75% work, 55% lead time [/li]
[li]closing: 3%, 5% lead time [/li]
[/ul]
This will give you a generic resource loading profile for the project. The shape of his generic profile will most likely depend on the size of the project so you'll have to tweak it to that.
[li] Using the start and end dates of the project, you can scale this generic profile to the actual work required and the actual duration. This will give you the actual workload of the PM on that project over time.[/li]
[li]The % complete, in combination with the phase the project is in, can be used to determine how much of the project still needs to be done, given the phase the program is in. This biases the remaining availability of the PM until the end of the project. If he is behind, his workload will be a bit higher than the scaled profile.[/li]
[li]You could now plot this on a daily basis in a worksheet for each project and sum the total work per day to see what the PM's availability is.[/li]
[/ul]

It shouldn't be too hard to fit this in an excel dashboard.
Hope this helps.

JL

 

[PushCode]

FietsenMaker,

Thanks very much for your help. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I think I can take your ideas and make this work.

Thanks!

 

[Babynus]

Hi,
Thanks to FietsenMaker !
Just some comments :
- if you want to calculate availability ot Project Manager resources only, then % should be different. The PM spend more time in the preparation than in the execution.
- I would split execution phase into realisation and validation phases.

Then, if you need a tool to automatically calculate the avalability from the calculated work, I can propose my own (I designed it for this king of needs) : have a look at

http://projectorria.toolware.fr.

Regards.

Babynus
Administrator of

http://www.toolware.fr

website
"free tools to helps you manage your projects"

 

[jessiewarner]

I would recommend using a project management software such as @task. The resource management tool is excellent and allows you to see everybody who is over and under allocated. You can see more at

http://www.attask.com.

 

[stevepm]

Here is a good tool that I've been using that works great for me. I hope it helps:

http://www.fileheap.com/dbquery/1/resource+capacity+utilization+calculation

Regards,

Steve Mark

How I Pass the PMP Exam for the PMP Certifiaction

http://www.pmguide.net/Recommended/F1/PMPrepcast.php