Project Manager

Question

Hi,

I want to be able to assign a costed Project manager to a project. I can assign resource to tasks etc. but i want to assign a project manager who is also on a daily rate. so if the length of the project increases their cost will vary.

I have found out I can't assign a resource to the Project Summary task, which is a pity as this would do the trick.

I don't want the PM on all tasks as obviously they don't work on all tasks and there would be clashes. I don't want the PM on sectional Summary tasks for the same reason.

So how can I assign a resource that has a variable cost based on the overall project duration as would a normal task/work resource, but reflects the whole project not just a task. Also of course they may have days off so no charge for those days so i need to be able to assign them a calendar . A normal work resource seems ideal except for the assignment to project option.

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Steve

Answer 1

That's great than kyou for your help, that clarifies things for me.

Cheers

Steve

Answer 2

Hi,

First, there is a solution for your worry to have to change duration yourself. Lookup

http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm FAQ 19: hammock tasks

Not that elegant but it is a solution.

Second, assigning a resource to a task for 20% makes Project add 12 seconds of work every minute of the task's duration - completely independent of any other task.

This can lead to overallocations when the same resoruce has any assignment of, for instance, 100% during  thet duration. Moreover, such overallocation cannot be solved with Resource leveling

Your solution of using a super-summary task works.

If you do have to assign the project manager to nonsummary tasks, and you want to use Resource Leveling, only your proposal of a recurring task is the only one that works.

Hope this clarifies and helps.

Answer 3

Hi Dale,

Thanks for the reply. I thought that might have to be the way to do it. I was hoping to avoid putting in a task purely as a project Management task that would not recalculate as the project lengthened i.e. it is up to me to increase/decrease the duration.

Using the technique you recommend how does project deal with the timings. Yes the LOE is 25% of a day so 2 hrs. But which 2 hours does project use? The first available 2 hours, so if the resource is in use elsewhere say on another project the 2 hrs is automatically shunted to the 3rd/4thr of the day, or does project just assume that as long as there is 25% availability for that resource across the projects then they can achieve the task, which is how i assume it works. In that case can I specify a 2 hr slot or is that where I would need to make a specific 2 hr task. Hence my idea below of using a recurring task.

I hope you don't mind if I pick your brains a bit further.

I have been toying with the idea of using an additional level or  indent. eg project summary task can't have resource assigned, but a normal summary task can (i know not recommended, but the resource will never be assigned to a specific task) so having a summary task of project management with indented below it further summary tasks with their subtasks all indented below them at the next level. Then all the 2nd level summary tasks would roll up to my Project Management Summary task which would recalculate etc as any of it's lower level summary tasks increased in duration.

Another thought i had was to use a recurring task of say 2hrs per day for project management, however this could lead to scheduling/diary conflicts. As the question would be which 2 hrs. And again i would have to increase the occurrences if the proj. duration increased.

Many thanks for your original reply as at the moment I am going with that as the best way to achieve my goal,, but if you have any opinion on my other ideas I would be pleased if you would comment.

Cheers

Steve

Answer 4

Steve --

First, you would need to add the PM to the project team in the Resource Sheet view and assign a Standard Rate for the PM.  Second, you would need to assign the PM to an extra task in the project than spans the current Duration of the entire project.  Some people refer to such a task as a Level of Effort (or LOE) task.  You might call this task something like Project Management, and then assign the PM to the task with a Units value that represents the approximate percentage of an average working day that the PM will work on this task.  If he/she might spend 2 hours per day on average managing the project, you would set the Units value to 25% on this task.

If the PM has PTO, you can edit the PMs calendar to show that.  If the Duration of the project increases, you would simply need to increate the Duration of the Project Management task.  That would be the simplest and easiest way to handle this, in my opinion.  Hope this helps.