Re: MS Project as Staffing Tool

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On Sep 14, 5:09 am, "Steve House" <sjhouse at hotmail dot com> wrote:
It sounds like you're trying to use Project to manage the on-going
activities of your firm rather than as a project scheduling application per
se. Projects are by definition closed-ended - there comes a time in their
life when all the required work is done for all time, everybody goes home,
and the last person out the door locks up. Project planning software is
designed to calculate the most effective work schedule that will get to that
point as soon as possible. It sounds as if you're trying to use it on a
week by week basis to manage employee schedules instead of having a file for
each project treating it as a cohesive whole, covering its work in toto from
start to finish. Reorganize the logic and I think a lot of your issues will
disappear. As far as keeping allocations within their designated week, why
should you? If changes to a project means that a certain task has to be
delayed from one week to the next - digging the hole for a swimming pool
finishing a week late means that pouring the concrete for the pool also has
to be delayed a week - doesn't that mean that the hours allocated to that
delayed task have to move into the week when you now expect to be able to do
that work? Let the schedule requirements of the task drive when hours are
allocated, not the other way around. Beyond that, it's hard to offer any
suggestions because you're trying to force a square peg down a round hole to
a certain extent.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visithttp://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htmfor the FAQs

"BrianCF" <Bria...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1677BEDD-E0B3-4979-9865-94BF85DFAE1F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We've been using MS Project as a staff / project management tool for our
architectural firm of 20 people and 40 active projects. Is there any way
to
set it up so that each week the start date moves to the next week and
"chops
off" or deletes the previous week? Right now I have to "zero out" the
hourly
allocations manually to reflect project changes and keep the hourly
projections in their designated week. (Deleting the previous week moves
all
the projected allocations up.)

Well said, Steve!

.

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