Understanding the Impact of Resources in the Project Plan


Resources carry out the work of your project. However, with your tasks defined and scheduled, why is it necessary to actually specify resources in your project plan? You could just print the schedule and tell people which tasks they're responsible for: Here are your due dates; now go make them happen.

This procedure might seem like a simple way of managing a project, but if you do it this way, you'll miss out on the tremendous scheduling, tracking, and communication capabilities provided by Microsoft Office Project 2003. By adding resources to your project, you can do the following:

  • Increase the accuracy of your schedule. In addition to scheduling according to the project calendar, durations, task dependencies, and constraints, when you assign resources, Project 2003 adds the working times and availability of your resources into the scheduling calculations.

  • Know ahead of time whether any resources are overloaded with too much work in the allotted time. You can also see whether anyone is underallocated and shift responsibilities accordingly as you refine your schedule. Later, when work is being done and you're getting progress information on each task, you can find bottlenecks or any new overallocations or underallocations due to shifts in the schedule.

  • Track progress according to resource work. Your resources can tell you how much time they've spent on their tasks for a given week and how much more time they will need. This tracking can help you make any necessary adjustments to keep the project moving in the right direction. Recording actual progress data also captures historical information that will be invaluable for future projects.

  • Record the use, cost, and consumption of materials in your project. These details can help you monitor your budget performance as well as give you advance notice as to when you need to reorder supplies .

  • Exchange task assignments, task updates, progress information, and status reports with your resources, via Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003.

  • Make sure that all tasks are assigned to a responsible and accountable resource, so nothing inadvertently slips through the cracks to be forgotten until it's too late.




Microsoft Office Project 2003 Inside Out
Microsoft Office Project 2003 Inside Out
ISBN: 0735619581
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 268

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