How to Add Resources to Tasks in Microsoft Project 2016
During this Microsoft Project 2016 training tutorial video, we will show you the different types of tasks that are available in Project 2016. Other points discussed include available options when adding resources to a task. These options are “reduce duration but keep the same amount of work,” “increase the amount of work but keep the same duration,” and “reduce the hours resources work per day (units), but keep the same duration and work.”
Hello again and welcome back to our course on Project 2016.
Now that you know how to assign resources to tasks the next thing we need to move on to is producing a workable schedule given the resources that are available. In order to do that there are a couple of fundamental things that you need to understand. And perhaps the most important thing to understand with Project 2016 is the different task types that can be involved in projects.
Now in order to illustrate this I’m using a sort of dummy project, just a very simple project with three tasks in it, A, B, and C. Currently they’re each two day tasks and a resource, Jane, is working on those tasks. And Jane is working for eight hours a day. So on task A Jane is doing 16 hours work, task B 16 hours work, C 16 hours work and so on.
Now let’s suppose that I provide Jane with some help. I say, “Jane, John is going to help you.” If I assign John to task A what do you think would happen? Now what may happen is you may look at it and say well obviously Jane is going to be able to get that job done in half the time. So instead of being a two day task it’s going to be a one day task. And obviously that is one option. But there are a couple of other options as well.
One other option is that if John works on that task as well it will still take two days but they will do 32 hours work during that time. So with twice as much resource twice as much work gets done but in the same time.
Another possibility is that we still want to get our 16 hours of work done and we still want to do it in two days but the fact that we’ve got both Jane and John working on it means that they only each need to devote half their time to it. So we effectively have three options. And those three options correspond to the three options you saw in the previous section when Project 2016 said you’ve changed information about resourcing on a task.
Which of these three options would you like to use when you apply that additional resource?
Now let me just show you that again. I’m going to now right click on task A. I’m going to click on Assign Resources. I’m going to choose John and I’m going to say Assign. Now notice the little warning sign on the left there. Now note that Project has assumed that in assigning John I still want to spend two days on this task but by having that second person we’re getting twice as much work done. So let’s go over to that warning sign, click on the dropdown.
The default option there, the middle one, Increase the amount of work but keep the same duration. The first one was, Reduce the duration but keep the same amount of work. So in that case we would have said well we’re still going to do 16 hours work but because we’ve got two people on it we can do it in a day. The third option, Reduce the hours resources worked per day, the units, but keep the same duration and work.
So we say it’s still a two day task. It’s still only going to be 16 hours work but Jane and John only need to work half the time each.
Now let me stick with the default option and what I want to do now is to show you why that was the default option. Let me open up task A. Now the reason that was the default option was because the task type was declared as fixed duration. And very importantly the box to the right of that, Effort driven, was not checked. So what this says is this task is a fixed duration task. It’s a two day task.
And putting more effort on it will not automatically reduce its duration. So my default is to keep the duration fixed and therefore if I add resource to it I’ll just get more work done. Let me now look at task B.
Now the way that task B is set up is as a fixed work task. So the amount of work is fixed. And all fixed work tasks are effort driven. Note that the Effort driven box is checked but it’s grayed out so I can’t change it. Now what do you think will happen if I add an additional resource to this task? It’s fixed work. It’s effort driven. I’m going to assign John to it. Look what happens.
I still get 16 hours work done but of course now with the additional resource it can be done in one day. If I go over to the warning on the left and click on the dropdown the default now, Reduce the duration but keep the same amount of work. Well that is the default for a fixed work task which is always effort driven.
But I could say, Increase the amount of work but keep the same duration. So I could say well okay it’s declared to be a fixed work task but on this occasion I want to actually increase the amount of work, having put the additional resource on. And then I also have the option of reducing the hours resource work per day. So I could say okay I’ll put a second person on it. It’s fixed work.
But because I’m not changing the amount of work each of the resources only needs to work part-time on it to achieve that amount of work. Now on this occasion I’m going to stick with the default and the duration of that task has been reduced by one day.
Now let’s look at task C which is a fixed unit task and currently it’s not effort driven. Now the significance of the effort driven part is whether in fact what we’re trying to do is to do a certain amount of work, to put in a certain amount of effort. And in doing that we are flexing, we’re varying the number of people working on it or the duration in order to get that amount done. If a task is not effort driven then we’re not trying to achieve that certain amount of work, put in that certain amount of effort.
And if I put more resources on to a task then all that will happen is that more work gets done. And as a task that’s not effort driven if I assign additional resource, let’s go to town this time. Let’s assign three more resources. What is going to happen is I assign a total of four people is that we’re just getting a lot more work done on that task. Now as usual you’ve got the warning sign on the left there and you can choose a different option. But basically we’re getting the default which is, Increase the amount of work but keep the same duration.
Now let me undo that particular change. Let’s go back in now and make it an effort driven task. Now that means we’re trying to achieve a certain amount of work, putting in a certain amount of effort. Now what happens if I assign those three extra resources? Given that it’s fixed units what do you think it’s going to happen? Well what happens is that the duration is reduced. So in half a day four people can do that amount of work.
Once again of course I can go to the warning sign and change that if I want to. But basically as it’s not fixed duration putting on that extra number of people means that I can get the work done much more quickly.
As I mentioned towards the beginning of this section we’re going to be doing quite a lot on scheduling from now on. And scheduling in Project 2016 can be quite complex at times and requires quite a bit of understanding of what’s going on. There is a very useful Help article, How Project schedules tasks behind the scenes, and it’s well worth you going through this Help article. It’s very useful, very well set out. It gives a lot of very useful information.
Of course I will be covering virtually all of this on the course and quite often in a little more detail than you’ve got here. But there is a section there, I think it’s the fourth one in the list, How do task types affect the schedule, and it sets out for the different task types, fixed units, fixed work, fixed duration, what will happen if you revise units, if you revise duration, if you revise work.
And then gives one or two really good examples of what happens in different situations. So I do suggest that you take some time to go through this and it will really help you if you can increase the level of your knowledge on scheduling in Project 2016.
And another important point here and I briefly mentioned this right near the beginning of the course. In Project Options on the Schedule page there are a couple of very important settings. One of them is the default task type. Mine is set to fixed units. I find that that isn’t something that I leave set the same way all the time. I often vary this depending on the type of project that I’m planning.
Sometimes setting it to fixed duration or fixed work throughout the time that I’m working on a new project in particular can actually save me time. But I’ve got it set here to fixed units. And the other default here is New tasks are effort driven. In my case that is not checked. You may find that you prefer your new task to be effort driven or again you might vary it from job to job.
So that’s it. We’ve covered the basics of task types. In the next section we’re going to start to look at scheduling itself so please join me for that.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
