Chapter 9
Assigning Resources to Get Things Done
In This Chapter
Understanding how assigning resources affects task timing
Making resource assignments
Checking resource availability
Using Team Planner view
Notifying team members of their assignments
You may have entered a cost per hour (or per use) for every resource in your project, but those resources won’t cost you a thing — or, for that matter, get anything done — until you assign them to tasks.
When you do begin making assignments, several interesting things happen. Not only will your budget start to swell, but in some cases, your tasks may actually change duration. You may also start to see evidence of people who are overbooked on several tasks that happen around the same time. Understanding how those results occur is key to making intelligent assignments.
However, your work won’t be over even when everything about your assignments looks hunky-dory. That’s when you have to communicate the assignments to your team and make sure that each resource agrees to take them on. If they don’t, it’s back to the assignment drawing board.
In fact, assigning resources is something of an ongoing process throughout your project. As usual, Project provides the tools to help you manage this entire process relatively painlessly.
You’d Be Surprised What Assignments Can Do to Your Timing
For autoscheduled tasks, the three task types (as I describe in Chapter 4) are fixed units, fixed work, and fixed duration. Each defines the relationship that ...
