Resource Forecasting Troubles

[ChrisCreole]

I have been given a plan that has work (in hours), generic resources (based on skill sets), a required start date, and a required finished date. Is there a way which I can forecast the required number of resources for each role (generic resource)?

I tried raising the allocation percentage on the resource sheet as a means of producing this calculation but project will not shorten the duration for an individual task unless you increase the number of resources on that task or by increasing the allocation on an individual basis.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanx,
ChrisCreole

 

[PDQBach]

What you are looking for is a Linear Programming solution. This is not available in MS Project (nor in any other project control software that I know of).

I'm not sure you could even use a piece of LP software to develop a solution. Resources aren't truly fungible; some tasks take X amount of time no matter how many resources you put on the task (classic example: it takes 9 months to make a baby); some predecessor/successor relationships are immutable while others can easily be modified to change the critical path.

So ... what's a guy (I've been told by my feminist friends that it's okay to refer to men and women collectively as "guys") supposed to do?

I'd build the project using my best guess then I'd look at the tasks on the critical path and determine if they can be lengthened or shortened or resequenced to improve the duration of the project. Then I'd look at the longer duration tasks and see what I can do to shorten them (remembering, of course, that shorting a task by ten days won't shorten the project duration by ten days if that task had only 1 day of float).

Even if you *do* get a schedule that starts and finishes on your desired dates, you almost certainly won't actually deliver it on time, on budget. What are the odds? Well, since we've already talked about some LP stuff, let's also mention, just in passing, that you should take the developed schedule and run it through one of the many Monte Carlo simulators that are available for Project. If you don't like the numbers that pop out, you can go back and play with the schedule before doing the Monte Carlo simulation again.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.