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Recent content by wanstronian

  1. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    I don't expect MSP to do it all. I would expect it to be able to perform basic mathematics in support of a fundamental planning approach though! I found a tool called OpenProj which does this adequately - unfortunately it has other shortcomings which means I can't use that either.
  2. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    Yep, unfortunately Primavera would be cost-prohibitive! I've decided the only real solution is to copy-and-paste into Excel, parse the resources column and calculate the duration correctly, then type it back into Project.
  3. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    We use MSP for initial scheduling and update it regularly as reality starts to bite. The fact that MSP can't accurately handle these changes without inaccurate forecasting of remaining work is exasperating and means that scheduling of work always take at least 5 times longer than it really...
  4. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    That's true, but how do you know how many people, and at what utilisation, to put on a task? You're saying you have to decide that before you enter the work, but the reality is that you'll want to play around with resourcing levels to see how it affects the schedule. Here's an example of why...
  5. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    Exactly. Not effort-driven, duration-driven. Project can't handle effort-driven scheduling. I want to know if there's a tool out there that can. I want to know how long a given task will take, if I know how much effort's involved and I know what resources I have. As an example, I know, from...
  6. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    I think I may have sussed this now - realised that the concept of effort is not a property of a task. Which means that Project can never support effort-driven scheduling [surprise]. Can anybody recommend an alternative tool that can provide this basic functionality? Thanks
  7. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    Forgot to mention - Proj 2003 SP3
  8. wanstronian

    MS Project increasing duration

    Hi, I know this is an age-old problem/bug/feature of MS Project, but can someone please tell me why allocating resource to a task line in project INCREASES its duration unless the resource is added at 100% utilisation? I have a task with effort of 54 days. I have two resources assigned, one at...
  9. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    If you type in a task name, then an effort (of, say, 24 hours), then a Resource Name of "Joe Bloggs[100%]" then press enter, MSP immediately changes it to "Joe Bloggs[300%]". Now where's the logic in that?
  10. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    Fair enough - I'm not sure how you can plan effectively without this functionality. Maybe I and my peers, as Project Managers in the UK's first CMMI Level 5 company, are not doing things right ;-) And I guess that MS, in their 'infinite wisdom' also recognise that its users apparently want to...
  11. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    Yes, I believe that works although I'm not at my work computer to prove it! It's not ideal as you have to type in the utilisation for each resource, meaning you can't use the drop down list that auto-populates as you add resource (because it won't by default set at 100%). But it seems to be the...
  12. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    The problem here is that I do not want to assign a specific resource, for the reasons I outlined in post#8. This seems like a basic requirement to me when outline planning a job. Let me ask a different question: if I'm supposed to do things in the order that everyone here is suggesting...
  13. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    Well, the part that I explained in my previous post.
  14. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    IRStuff - for me, that's putting the cart before the horse! Surely it's easier to see how long (duration) the tasks take, then assign resources to ensure best utilisation. If you assign the resources first, then when you put the effort figures in, you'll almost certainly end up with one or two...
  15. wanstronian

    Duration vs Work

    That's what I thought. I set up my resources with a Max utilisation of 100%. Makes no difference - resources are still overutilised.
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