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Ms Project - Management Gannt

Autor:   •  September 17, 2018  •  1,121 Words (5 Pages)  •  483 Views

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MS Project Tools and Solutions

MS Project has a useful tool ‘Resource Levelling’. This tool can resolve the over allocation problems seen in the initial project plan. It will re-allocate resources so they are no-longer over-allocated. This can be implemented in different ways.

- You can allow for work to be completed over weekends, overtime or hiring extra staff. This will be can more costly due to higher rates but does not delay completion of the project. This is on the assumption the project is time constrained.

- You can attempt to level resources within slack. Which means it spreads resources around within the expected duration and does not add costs. This is the best possible option but may not be possible to implement. This is on the assumption the project is time, cost and resource constrained.

- The third option is to level resources with the assumption that resources and costs are constrained and outside of slack. This will delay the completion of the project but will not add associated costs.

All these options can be easily completed within MS Project. The easiest and cheapest solution is option 3.

Final Project Plan

The final project plan was using option 3 and resource levelling with the assumption that resources are constrained. This is because costs are minimized and resources do not need to be added. It was not possible to level the entire project within slack. The final project plan would have either cost more or be extended for a week.

There are numerous assumptions with this plan:

• No indirect costs. Costs such as administration, personnel and security would increase along with the project duration. So if indirect costs were included in the project, the extended duration may not be the best option for Levelling.

• Labour is contracted. If the workers were on salary, the extended duration of the project would greatly increase the cost.

• Project completion time. The assumption has been made that extending the completion of the project by 5days does not affect anything further down the line.

• 100% attendance. As there is no slack in the timeline, if a worker is unable to complete allocated work due to illness, or injury, then the project will be further delayed.

This resulted in a project that lasted 164 days as opposed to the initial 159 days. The cost associated with the project was not affected and remained at $1 813 600.

Conclusion

Projects are usually planned without certain information. Through identified assumptions and constraints projects can be shaped to provide accurate estimates. From this assignment, students develop knowledge of the workings of MS Project to be able to analyse various project options through the use of Gantt charts, Resource Histograms, Cost reports, and many other visual numerical methods. MS Project is a powerful toll that can assist project managers on their project management.

Issues with the program were that it is sometimes hard to intuitively perform tasks in the program. There were also issues with levelling at some stages. It took multiple goes to achieve the most effective result and involved reviewing multiple results. There were also instances where the program indicated that no over-allocation of resources by reviewing the histograms indicated sections where it was over-allocated. It is difficult to print diagrams with good scaling. During levelling it can be hard to determine what has been altered.

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