Re: MS Project lacks basic project management features!

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Hi Ace,

Well, you're absolutely right, it IS one of the main weaknesses of the
application and you are entitled to ask for it. But I'm not sure the feature
is "advertised on the box" as you claim.
Project seems to be written by and for software developers who have a major
problem seeing problems in other areas such as producing something.
I keep on preaching the good word and ask for solutions (this is not a patch
it is a major improvement); let's hope somebody listens...

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620
"Steve House [Project MVP]" <sjhouse.remove.this@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
schreef in bericht news:uDnGqSqHGHA.2320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
See embedded...
"Ace Frahm" <AceFrahm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:703BA4BB-92AC-47A0-A031-80830AB28A69@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have found things wrong/missing with MS Project that should be patched!

1. It assumes all materials are limitless. Let's say I've got a pile of
plywood and 2x4's and some boxes of nails. I can't use MS Project to
determine how many bird houses I can make before I run out of one of
these
ingredients. The program is written in such a way that it can't keep
track
of your inventory of available stock. It assumes I can ALWAYS buy more
materials. This is almost never the case in the real world. In the
real
world, I've only got so much materials, I can't get more. I want MS
Project
to tell me how much I can do with what I've got. This is a basic,
fundamental question anyone trying to run a project has with EVERY
project.
Nearly each and every project needs to do several calculations like
this,
but
MS Project can't. This flaw alone makes me sorry I paid full retail for
MS
Project.

You're putting the cart before the horse here. Project management is not
about what you can do with what you've got. It's about estimating what yo
u
are going to need in order to achieve your business's strategic
objectives.
Project will tell you that if your business requires 25 birdhouses, you
will
somehow need to acquire XXX amount of plywood, YYY number of nails, hire
ZZZ
workers, and set aside 6 weeks to build them. You input the objective,
Project tells you what you need to do to achieve it. If you don't have
enough resources to accomplish that end, you only have two options -
acquire
more resources or reduce the scope of your objectives.


2. It can't make reasonable work schedule. If I have a group of people
assigned to bird house painting, I can't get MS Project to spit out a
personalized work schedule for each ACTUAL living person in that group.
MS
Project just assumes that a group of bird-house painters are all exactly
alike, with exactly the same schedule, and every person in the group is
completely interchangeable with all the other members of the group. In
the
real world, this might happen, but almost never does. It can't account
for
the one painter in the group who works half-days. It can't account for
the
one painter who gets Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

It absolutely will account for that - that's the whole idea behind the
existence of resource calendars - if it appears not to in your plan,
you're
not listing your resources in sufficient detail. You don't have a single
resource that is a group of 5 painters - you have 5 different resources
Joe
Painter, Bill Painter, Fred Painter, Wilma Painter, and Betty Painter.
You
can group them for convenience IF they have the same skills and IF they
work
the same schedule but unless they are truly interchangeable parts you need
to list them each with their own individual resource *** entry.


Let's say I want to assign one particular painter from my "bird house
painters" group to paint a large special order bird house. Then I want
to
assign the rest of the bird house painters to do the normal bird house
painting task. MS Project can't do it. It will treat the human bird
house
painters as though they were just material ingredients to bird houses,
one
nail no different from any other nail, no person unique from any other
person
in a MS Project group resource. I guess what I'm trying to say is that
Project doesn't cope in a real world way with working unit groups of
people
who are unique persons, who can belong to more than one working group
and
also be assigned to perform individual tasks of their own.

See above - the only reason it does let you do that is you have taken too
many shortcuts defining your resource set. If you want Project to treat
the
painters as unique individuals you must list them as unique individuals -
this functionality or lack thereof is 100% under your control.


I want project to automatically make a REAL work schedule I can print
and
post, and reasonably expect workers to follow.

Project never creates a work schedule - YOU create the work schedule by
inputting the project's parameters. Project is only a calculator,
creating
its output based on your input - GIGO.


3. When I assign a group to a series of tasks, I want a setting that
will
assign ONE person from that group until his available work time is used
up,
and THEN assign the next person in the group until that personâ?Ts time
is
used
up, and so on. I donâ?Tt want the ENTIRE GROUP working on the very same
task
at the very same time. I want the group to take care of a bunch of ONE
or
TWO person tasks that could be happening either simultaneously or at
different times. Sometimes I donâ?Tt care which particular member does
them,
so long as the tasks get done (random group member selection). Sometimes
I
care what order the group members are assigned (such as, when I assign
â?opainterâ?? group to a task, always assign Tom first, no matter what.
Then
always assign Sally second, when Tomâ?Ts time is used up. Miguel, at
the
bottom of my group list, would always be assigned last, if needed.) I
want
to be able to change this ordering too, such as â?oAfter the third
project
milestone is met, Assign Sally to tasks first, THEN assign Tom to tasks
second, and assign Miguel third, then assign all other members of the
painter
group randomly after thatâ??.

A task is a physical action performed by ONE resource or a resource team
working as a unit and resulting in ONE specifc deliverable. Just as it
appears you're not breaking your resources down into sufficient detail,
apparently you're taking shortcuts with your task breakdown as well. If
THIS birdhouse requires JOE's unique skills, both Joe and the birdhouse
require separate entries. If this task can be done by anyone in a generic
group of 5 painters and you only want one painter on it, the Painter group
has a max availability of 500% but you only assign it 100% - that's one
person out of the 5 and we don't care who. If you want all 5 on the task
at
once, assign the resource at 500%. Remember when you have a group, they
are
interchangeable parts and you don't care who it is that shows up each day
of
the task - as long asa warm body is there that's all that matters. If you
have to have a schedule that says Julie comes in on Tuesday to paint
birdhouses, Julie MUST be listed as a separate resource, not a part of the
generic group "painters." Caution - it's an either/or thing. If you have
a
5 painters and Julie is one of them, you only have two choices - treat
them
all as interchangeable parts and have one resource "painters" with a max
availability of 500% and not list Julie at all, or have 2 resources, Julie
with a max avail of 100% and a generic group "painters" consisting of the
other 4 and its max avail is thus 400%.


I think this would require a new way for MS Project to specify the
maximum
number of people from different groups who can work on a given task at
the
same time.

It already shows it - but it's not Project that specifies it, it's you who
does it by the assignment percentage you choose. If you want 3 painters
out
of the 5 in the group, assign painters at 300%.


But I do need know WHO is going to work on what, and when, so when it
selects a painter at random from the painter group, it must show the
name
of
the person it picked, not just â?opainter group quantity x peopleâ??.
(but it
can have placeholder names for job slots not yet filled by a specific
person.
Key thing is, each person of labor resource must have a specific
identifier,
not treated like interchangeable undistinguishable parts.)

See above - if you need to know WHO is assigned, you must list them as
individuals and assign them as individuals - you are the manager making
the
decision as to who is best suited to do the job at hand, not MS Project.
It
never decides, only reflects your decisions and you can't expect to make
your job easier by off-loading that decision-making responsibility to the
software. A project manager is first and formost a MANAGER, a
decsion-maker, not just a clerk inputting data into a computer and
following
its dictates.

4. Resource leveling merely attempts to create one of many possible
solutions. MS Project has no means to create the OPTIMUM solution, or
even a
few different possible solutions. If I want to optimize the solution to
maximize the number of nails I have left, MS Project can't do it. It
can't
even optimize money savings. I want tools that can optimize any
quantity
in
the program, such as finding a way to give a particular worker the most
time
off, conserve a particular material, make the most profit.

It doesn't do that because like all other PM software I'm aware of, it is
a
work scheduling program - period. IT IS NOT AN ACCOUNTING PROGRAM! IT IS
NOT A MANAGEMENT EXPERT SYSTEM! IT IS NOT A STRATEGIC PLANNING SYSTEM!
All
of those things are your job, not the software's. Only you know how many
nails are required to make a birdhouse. Project will tell you how many
you
need if you need to make 100 birdhouses but you have to tell it how many
are
needed for 1.

Resource leveling is not resource optimizin g. It does one thing and one
thing only - resoolve scheduling conflicts. I have Julie scheduled to
spend
8 hours on Monday painting birdhouses and I've also scheduled her to spend
8
hours on Monday varnishing perches, two mutually exclusive tasks. She's
scheduled somehow to magically achieve 16 man-hours of work during the
course of an 8-hour workday, an impossiblity. She can't be two places at
once. Resource leveling will move one of those tasks to Tuesday assuming
she's free. period. That's all it does. Anything else is your
responsibility because anything else requires either a personnel decision
or
a strategic decision only a human manager can make.


Because the projectsâ?T end date isnâ?Tt always what matters most.

5. Let's say I make wedding cakes. There are three tasks I need done
before
I can make a cake, and EACH TASK MAKES MATERIALS USED IN LATER TASKS.
The
cake layers must be baked, the frosting must be whipped together, and
the
bride&groom cake topper ornament must be painted. At least some of
these
materials must be created before the "final cake assembly" task could
begin.
But just as soon as these material producing tasks have made some items,
final cake assembly can begin. AND, the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ?? can
continue
until the ingredients are used up (when the quantity of any one of the
ingredients reaches 0 on the material resources list.) The â?ofinal
cake
assemblyâ?? TASK would not be associated with the â?obake layersâ??
task,
the â?owhip
frostingâ?? task, or the â?opaint figurines taskâ??, it would begin
whenever there
were enough materials available to assemble a cake. If MS Project
worked
right, I could design the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ?? task so that it only
begins
when thereâ?Ts enough material to make 5 cakes. And then the â?ofinal
cake
assemblyâ?? task would end when one of the three ingredient materials
runs
out.
Letâ?Ts say youâ?Tve got 40 cake layers, 5 whipped frostings, and zero
cake
topper-figurines left. The â?ofinal cake assemblyâ?? task would stop
because you
have no cake toppers left. If MS Project worked right, I could also
specify
that the â?ofinal cake assemblyâ?? task must stop after making 8
finished
cakes,
even if thereâ?Ts more than enough materials to make additional finished
cakes.


In MS Project, you can't simulate this, because project has no way of
making
a material resource become available as the result of a task completion.
And, MS Project can't make a task (like the final cake assembly) start
just
as soon as all the necessary material resources become available. And,
Project canâ?Tt automatically make a task end after producing quantity X
material resources.

MS Project is not a production management application, it is a project
management application. Projects are defined as time-limited undertaking
swith observable and discrete start and end points resulting in a unique,
observable, and quantifiable deliverable. MS Project's role in that is to
schedule the work required to make it happen and estimate the direct costs
involved. Everything else that needs to be done to make it happen lies
outside its universe.


These production-assembly problems occur all the time in project
management,
but MS Project has no means to describe them, let alone find the best
solution.

6. Project can't simulate the availability of material from suppliers.
Let's suppose I own a juice press because I make orange juice, apple
juice
and grapefruit juice for a living. I may have several different
suppliers
of
oranges, apples, and grapefruits. Each supplier may produce any
combination
of these fruits at any given time of the year. Sometimes no supplier
has
any
fruit for sale, sometimes all my suppliers have the same fruit for sale
all
at once. And of course, each supplier charges a different price than
the
other suppliers, for the same fruit, at the same time. If I put a task
in
MS
Project, "Press some orange juice", it could only occur when oranges are
available from suppliers. If I have a task to "Press 500 gallons of
orange-grapefruit citrus blend juice" with a price constraint of $3.89
per
gallon, it can only happen when both oranges AND grapefruit (material
resources in Project) are available. AND, the cost constraint of the
task
can ONLY be met if the supplier's price combinations work out. MS
Project
can't cope with this, it can only make one resource calendar for one
material, not for multiple suppliers. But again, this is a problem that
occurs constantly in real-world project management.

Again, you're expecting it to do the managing for you, not merely crunch
data while you do the managing. It don't do that, and Heaven help us if
any
software were to try.

Paint this on your bathroom mirror so you see it every day - "MS Project
is
schedule planning and cost estimating software. IT IS NOT financial
modeling, planning, or management software!" It tells you nothing about
what strategy you should adopt in order to meet your business objectives.
It only deals with tactical planning.

No software is a one-application-does-it-all type of beast. The scenario
you're describing above is a classic case of numerical modeling which is
what Excel excels at..


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



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