Interim plans

When you create baseline it stores all the information about tasks in five categories: start dates, finish dates, durations, work, and cost estimates) sometime you want only to track dates for comparisons you can use Interim plans. An interim plan is a set of current project data that you save after the project begins and that you can compare against the baseline to assess project progress. An interim plan saves only two kinds of information: the current start dates and finish dates for tasks.  Remember you can set up to 10 interim plans for a project so don't afraid of using same.

 After setting up an Interim Plan in MS Project, the next steps typically involve tracking and analyzing the project's progress against the established baseline. 

Once you setup your Interim Plans, you can now follow below steps

Update Actual Progress: As work on your project progresses, regularly update the actual progress of tasks in MS Project. This includes updating task durations, marking tasks as complete, and entering actual start and finish dates.

Compare Baseline and Actual: MS Project provides various views and reports that allow you to compare the Interim Plan (baseline) with the current project schedule (actual). These comparisons help you identify any deviations, delays, or changes in the project.

Analyze Variances: Review the variances between the baseline and actual data to identify areas where the project is deviating from the original plan. MS Project offers features like the "Tracking Gantt" view and "Variance" table that can assist in analyzing these differences.

Adjustments and Rescheduling: Based on the variances you observe, you may need to make adjustments to your project schedule. You can update task durations, add or remove tasks, adjust dependencies, or allocate additional resources as necessary to realign the project with its objectives.

Communicate Updates: Share progress updates and reports with stakeholders and project team members. This helps keep everyone informed about the project's status and any changes that have occurred.

Monitor and Track Changes: Continuously monitor the project's progress and update the Interim Plan accordingly. Capture new Interim Plans at significant milestones or when substantial changes occur to maintain an accurate historical record.

Perform Trend Analysis: Over time, use the Interim Plans and historical data to analyze trends and patterns in the project's performance. This analysis can help identify recurring issues, assess the effectiveness of corrective actions, and improve future project planning.

Iterative Process: Project management is an iterative process, so you'll repeat these steps throughout the project's lifecycle. Set new baselines as needed, track progress, analyze variances, and make adjustments to ensure the project stays on track.

By following these steps, you can effectively monitor, track, and adjust your project's progress based on the Interim Plan you have set up in MS Project. It helps you stay informed, make data-driven decisions, and keep your project on course towards successful completion.

Baseline the Project and Tasks

Now you have finalized your plan, it is time to execute the project. Before you jump and start tracking the changes you have to take snapshot of your plan so that you can compare this in future with actual execution values. This is called base lining.

To set baseline, got o Project menu and click on set baseline button.

Setting Baselines

Select Baseline Options

Popup will ask what you want to do, you can set baseline additionally you can set up to  10 baselines more. Meaning you can have nearly 11 different versions that you can compare against each other.

Also it is possible to set baselines to selected tasks. This is useful if you want to closely track the project task for variation.

To do baseline for few task select the task and click on selected tasks. 

We will see the other interesting topic Interim plan in next blog.

Budgeted resource – Saving Budget to your project

Sometime during planning and even in executing you have been assigned some budget by company irrespective of what is actually needed to your project, for example your dept. can only spend X amount of euro in particular fiscal year or X amount of hours or X amount of material. Sometime it makes sense that we keep note of this while we do our planning.

Let us say we have 100 days and 80,000 Eur approvals from management and if the project plan or actual is more than this value we need extra approvals from top management. It is important to save this in our project

To do this we need create Budget Resources.

Go to Resource sheet and create two different resources, Budgeted_Cost of type cost and Budgeted_days type work.

To do this double click on empty line in resource sheet and in Resource Information tab select type as “Cost” and check “Budget” checkbox.

Adding Budgeted Cost Resource

To create Budgeted_days resource, follow the same steps but select the type as “Work”
You will see for this type of resource the “Resource Availability” will be disabled.

Adding Budgeted Work

Also you will see that cost tab is deactivated. The standard rates are not available.  Reason it has the special purpose we will see this soon.

Budgeted Resources 

Now you created the budgeted resource now it is time to assign them. One thing you must always remember that you cannot assign the budgeted resources to any task or even to summary task. 

Error When you try to assign resource to Task or Summary Task

You can assign the budgeted resources only to overall summary task.

Correct Way of Assigning Budgeted Resources

The best way to analyze budgeted resource in Task Usage screen where you can use them for comparing same against actual.

Switching to Task Usage

Task Usage view

Saving Extra Information – hyperlinking and attaching documents

It is sometime required that you save more information about a task or link some documents to your task that make your job much easier.

To save notes for task, double click a task and in task information dialog box click notes.
In our scenario we want to keep note of what manual task we need to track, lets make note of it and save it.

Adding Notes

The MS Project will indicate small note icon next to task, indicating it has some notes.

Task with Notes

When you mouse over the note icon, MS project will show the quick popup with note, very useful feature to quickly give you hint what you want to meant by it.

Quick pop up on Note icon

Now let us assume that you want to save the complete checklist while you create the Design.

To add document in project that can be saved inside the project file and move with it, you can do this by following same method as above and click on Insert Object button.

Insert Object

From popup window either create new document or select from file.

Insert Object

If you don’t want directly the content to be added from document, click on the Display as icon check box.

Now some time it doesn’t make sense to include complete document to your MS project file as this will increase the overall project file size. To save the link of document to your task, right click on your task and select hyperlink from menu.

Add Hyperlink

In Insert Hyperlink select the file or provide web address, enter text to be shown when you hover your mouse on link also you can show additional tip using screen tip button. 

Adding link

You will see that MS Project adds hyperlink icon next to your task and now you can hover your mouse to see the desired information.

Task with hyperlink

View the cost and add fixed cost

Now that we have done with our scheduling we like to see the overall cost for our project. To view the cost quickly, right click on the table corner and select “cost”

Changing Views

Menu

You will able to view total cost for each task.

Cost View

In earlier project version the cost resource was not available, if you want to use some cost like travel etc to specific task you need to visit this view and maintain the values here. The new cost resource has now made the job much easier to track however we can still use this feature to mention any fix cost specific task has.

In our scenario when we install new hardware we also need to do some carpeting work to adjust the new hardware and save on space and some furniture need to be changed. We assume the overall cost would be around 500 Euros. 

Just add the new fixed cost in Fixed cost column next to respective task.

Adding Fixed Cost

You can see the overall cost is automatically updated by MS project. In case the project summary task is not visible click on format tab and select the Project Summary task.

Using Resource usage view

You have seen how team planner helps to quickly adjust the resource overloading issue either by postponing or transferring task to other resource. However if you want same resource to work on multiple task at same time you can user resource usage view to adjust the efforts.

For example in our case

Resource Usage View showing overloaded resource

Let's adjust the hours manually, as we know Jayant need more efforts at start of hardware sizing task thus we assign more efforts at begin and then reduce the efforts.

Resource Usage view after manual adjustment.

As you can see MS Project show icon indicator with pencil in information column, indicating the hours are manually adjusted.

The other way is to let MS project adjust the hours using work contour option. To access work contour option double click task, it will open Assignment Information box, Now select the desired work contour option.

Assignment Information

The Work Contour option provides choices for the contour shape to use for the resources assigned to a task. The work contour determines how work for an assignment is to be distributed across the duration of the assignment.

You can use the work contour to manage the work scheduled for a certain resource. This will allow the user to control any resource workload better.

The categories of Work Contour field include:

• Flat - This is the default setting. Flat contour means that the resource is working the same amount of hours every day).
• Back Loaded - More work is assigned to the end of the task duration.
• Front Loaded - More work is assigned to the beginning of the task duration.
• Double Peak - A task that has two major periods of peak activity.
• Early Peak - More work hours in the 3/8 part of the task duration.
• Late Peak - More work hours in the 6/8 part of the task duration.
• Bell - More work hours in the 4/8 and 5/8 of the task duration.
• Turtle - A bell with a ramp up and ramp down.

Working with Team Planner

Team planner is great tool introduced in MS project with version 2010. Team view can quickly help you in seeing clearly and quickly what your team is doing at any given point in the project schedule. You can move task to a different time in the schedule or able to move task from overloaded resource to any free resource.

You can switch to Team planner view either by clicking Team planner button on status bar or selecting Team Planner option from View group in view tab.

Team Planner button

When two or more tasks assigned to a resource overlap and cause the resource to be overbooked (or overallocated), thin red bars appear above and below the overbooked period. Team Planner view also shows you any tasks that are unassigned or lack enough schedule information to be scheduled.

In our case, MS Project shoeing us resource overloading for few tasks.

Overloaded resource

Team Planner view showing resource over-allocated.

Now if we select and drag the Hardware Sizing task to left after Prepare New Design Task, the schedule is changed to reflect the new date keeping task to same resource.

Team Planner view after adjusting

In case you don't want to change the timeline and you have other free resource who has same skills you can drag the task to respective resource.

In our case we can assign this task to Soham by dragging the task down.

Team Planner view after assigning the task to new resource.

You can see all the unscheduled task in column next to resource name column, you can drag the task to respective resource and timeline.

The unassigned tasks are shown at the bottom , you can move the task to respective task to assign it to respective resource.

Leveling resources

Once you added several tasks and resources assigned to those tasks. Some resources are assigned to multiple tasks, resulting in over-allocated resources.

Resource leveling helps in taking care of a resource-loaded schedule and making it so that those resources don’t have to work overtime. The main goal is to have a critical path that is corrected for resource dependencies. Furthermore, all other tasks and deliverable should have reliable finish dates.

For example in our case "Develop web pages" and "Develop web services" both are planned to start on 20th Jan, and Soham is key resource for same. MS project indicates the resource overloading with icon refer below image

Task before Leveling

To level resource click on task that need to be level and select "Level Resource"

Level Resource

 MS Project adjust the dates of  task to avoid any resource overloading. Check the develop web pages task below, the task is moved to new date.

Task after Leveling

You can use "Level All" to adjust all the resource leveling for all task that are showing resource overloading however please use this option with caution and review the plan again. 

Before using the automated feature, you will need to ensure that each resource has the appropriate project allocation set and that there are no manual over-allocations.

In case you want to use this feature , first adjust the task priorities so the task that you want to postpone have lesser priorities.  

 The automated resource leveling will NOT adjust tasks where the resource assignment is above Max Units, nor will it change the assignment level to resolve task/resource level over-allocations.  Automated resource leveling will adjust only the scheduling of tasks, not the allocation of resources to tasks.

 

Fixed work, Fixed Duration, Fixed Units explained

In last blog we understood the task type and how they related, Please read same before continuing below and remember the formula !

Duration x Units = Work

Use Fixed Work when you know the amount of work, In this case you can change the duration to stretch out or compress the time you allow to get that fixed amount of work done. Changing work changes duration proportionately, but changing duration does not change work.

Suppose you set fixed-work task to have 40 hours of work. Duration is automatically set to 5 days (by default 8 hrs./day) . Now if you change the duration to 10 days , the work will still remain as 40 hrs (Fixed work) and task changes: from 8 hours/day (the default) to 4 hours/day (units changes).

Other hand for Fixed Duration task the Duration remains constant, for example you have fixed-duration task set to 5 days. Work will automatically be set to 40 hours (by default calculation). Now if you change the work to 20 days the task changes: from 8 hours/day (the default) to 4 hours/day.(units changes)
Use Fixed Duration when you think about a task in terms of how much time you want to allocate for it irrespective of work and units.

Use fixed-units, when you think of tasks interchangeably in terms of its work and the time allocated for it. That's generally because, when you do assign resources to the task, you expect they will work on the task a fixed number of hours (i.e. units) of their time each day. So, changing either the work or the duration will change the other one proportionally.

Below table is quick cheat sheet to remember  the relationship .

Quick Cheat : Relationship between Work, Unit and Duration

Understanding Duration, Work and Units

Remember,

Duration x Units = Work

Fixed Units suggests that are the amount of capacity that a resource can devote to a task. An example of this is that you suggest to Microsoft Project that a resource can only work 50% of the time on a specific task. Microsoft Project will then automatically calculate the duration of the task with the resource only working 50% of the time.

Fixed Duration suggested that the task the task must be completed within a given duration. As you assign a single or multiple resources to the task, Microsoft Project will automatically calculate the appropriate resource allocation percentage to ensure the task is completed within the given duration.

Fixed Work suggests that a task has a specific numbers of hours work associated with it. In this scenario, we know that the task is going to take ten hours to complete. We have the ability to schedule the tasks overall duration for five days with fixed work of ten hours. Assuming a single resource is responsible for completing the task, Microsoft Project will schedule the resource to work two hours a day for the five day duration.

Maintain Resource calendar

As setting up project calendar is an important thing that must be done at the beginning of project, similarly maintaining  the resource calendar for your “planning” step. You may face  project disaster if your resource who is assigned to the critical path task has planned leave and you have not taken care of same in your plan.

Maintaining resource calendar is easy in MS Project, the difficult part is to get details I know ;)  …

When you define work resource in MS Project, Project will automatically create a calendar with the respective resource name. You just need to maintain it like the one we maintained for the project.

Let us assume that Swapnali is on a planned vacation on 16th Jan 2015. If you don’t inform this to project, project will assign work to her during this period, however if you maintain her leaves project will take care of this situation and adjust the work accordingly.

Project task prior maintaining resource calendar

To maintain respective resource calendar, go to manage working time and select Swapnali's calendar from drop-down. Now select  16th Jan and Mark it as holiday.

Maintain resource calendar

Now once you click ok, you can see project has taken the leave in consideration and automatically adjusted the dates for dependent tasks.

Request/Demand (assignment field)

When you use “Assign Resource” dialog box for assigning resource you can see small field with mark “R/D” . This is the Request/Demand field.

Assign Resource

When you mark resource as “Demand” it indicates that the specified resource must be used and not substituted. When you mark resource as “Request” it indicates that the specified resource should be used unless the resource is over allocated. Request/Demand field is manually entered and can be used to specify how and which resources can be assigned to tasks when the Resource Substitution Wizard is activated.

The default option is “Blank”, indicates that any qualified resource can be assigned to the task.

This option can be best used with Task Usage or Resource Usage view when you want to display or change the resource substitution type for an assignment.

Note that the Request/Demand field is disabled for generic resources.

In Project Professional 2010, connected to Project Server 2010, it was possible for project managers to assign resources to tasks and then specify whether that assignment was a Request or a Demand, depending on their view of which resources could carry out that task. Running the Resource Substitution Wizard would then attempt to level resources.

The Resource Substitution Wizard is no longer available in Project Professional 2013, so one would assume that there would be no need to be able to specify a Request or Demand field for resource assignments.