Project 2007 Teams

[emmandkev]

We use Project 2007, but not Project 2007 Server.

I want to assign resources to tasks, but my resources are not individuals, they are firms. Most of those firms have many employees and I simply have no idea who the particular individuals will be who will actually work on the project. All I know is that Firm 1 will be assigned to Task A, Firm 2 to Task B, etc.

The assignment of resources is further complicated by the fact that (for e.g.) Firm 1 will be working on Tasks A, D, E and T and that those tasks will take place simultaneously, or overlap significantly.

Whilst that's not a problem for Firm 1, because they have enough employees to deliver this volume of work, if I simply treat Firm 1 as an individual then Project will tell me that Firm 1 cannot do all that work because they are being over used.

So the question is, how to you use the resourcing tools in Project when you are dealing with a firm and not an individual?

Finally, Firm 1 has quoted me a lump sum of $X.xx for Task A and $Y.yy for Task D, etc. How do I include such lump sum agreements in the resource sheet when that sheet is asking me for a rate per hour?

 

[PDQBach]

For the first part of your question: you don't care. Just take the task and assign Firm1 or Firm2 or Firm3 as appropriate. If they show up as over/under allocated, it's not a problem of yours. Just because they may have lots of employees does NOT mean you've got access to specific resources -- just the opposite, in fact. You'll often find that a large consulting company will rotate resources through your project because they want their own staff to get a broad skill set (so that the consulting company can brag about when they are quoting on other projects from other companies).

For the second question, you've actually already answered it. They quoted by Task (deliverable), so you track costs by task (deliverable) -- not by resource(s).

View > Gantt
Insert the columns Fixed Cost, Fixed Cost Accrual, %WorkComplete.

Fixed cost is where you'll put the quoted cost for the deliverable
Fixed Cost Accrual is
* Start (as soon as you report anything in %WorkComplete, the entire cost will appear in Actual Cost);
* End (nothing will appear in Actual Cost until %WorkComplete = 100)
* Prorated (%WorkComplete is the % of the Cost that will appear in Actual Cost)
%WorkComplete is where you reflect progress

Note this is NOT spread between Start date and Status Date (Project > Project Information...). Let's assume you have a 10 month task with a cost of $100. After month 2, you report 30% in %WorkComplete. Cost is still $100; Actual Cost will be $30. But if you go to View > Task Usage you will see that $10 is in Month 1, $10 is in Month 2 and $10 is in Month 3.

There are ways of fixing this (none nice). That's why I generally tell people to track progress in Project and costs in Excel.