How to define non-productive admin time for project resources

[alcri]

I am using MS Project and I think there are a few ways of defining non-productive admin time for all resources. I do not have any experience in this area and I am not sure which one works and what the pros/ cons would be:

- In the resource sheet, you could set up a resource with availability of 80% (since you want to account for non-productive time).

-Or perhaps globally change the "hours in a day" for the entire project to 6 instead of 8? – it still does the same thing.

Technically in both cases I can still share resources between projects and identify their over allocation- so there is no difference I can see. What is your experience ? How do you deal with non-productive resource time?

Thanks
Alex

 

[MSPtrainer]

This is a question that I get a lot in my classes. You should always select one method and stick to it for consistancy. When people tell me that that they assign resources at 80% I also ask "80% of what?". Every resource has a number of hours that they should be available for project work in a week - find out what that number is. The easiest way is to adjust the resource calendars to reflect available project time in a week and then not worry about the percentages. In this example you are also not collecting non-project working time. The max. units column doesn't work well for fixed duration tasks so I don't recommend using it at any thing less than 1.

If you are using Project Server, resources would enter their project and non-project time and you would be collecting all working time. This approach should be all resources available for their total working time on their calendars.

The way you track will also be in important piece of your project management.

Good luck
E. Lehnert, PMP - Certified MS Project trainer

http://www.lehnertcs.com