[Planner] Task Timing Question

[Jacob Brunson <brunsonj yahoo com>]

Hi,

(I am told this is the user mailing list, I'm a user
and I have a question.  If there is a better place
somewhere else to ask this question, let me know and
I'll take it there.)

I have never used project planning software before,
but I thought I might give it a shot to impress my
manager.  I am having some difficulty figuring out the
logic about how to manage tasks or assigning
predacessors.  Let me tell you what I want to do:

I manage a web site.  There are many pages in this web
site, each will take a certain amount of time to do. 
I have a parent task called "Redesign Website"
underwhich are the tasks for all the pages I need to
redesign.  In many cases, I work on several pages at
the same time.  In other cases though, a page can only
be worked on after another page is done.  

Right now I'm the only person working on this website,
and so I created an object under resources that
represents myself and the time/schedule that I have to
work on the website.  In the future, other people may
be working on this website with me.  Currently though,
all the tasks are assigned to me because I am the only
worker.

Here is my problem though.  The "Redesign Website"
parent task only shows the time of the longest task. 
I understand that I can make one task a predecessor of
another, and then the parent task then shows a longer
time, but the problem with this is that the tasks are
NOT dependant on each other.  If another developer
should begin helping me, I should be able to assign
him tasks and see the total time to completion go
down.

Examples of what I would expect:
(where JWB and PHB are workers.  JWB works 8 hours a
day, PHB works 2 hours a day) 
Website Redesign One - 1 day, 2 hours
   Page A - JWB - 3 hours
   Page B - JWB - 3 hours
   Page C - JWB - 2 hours
   Page D - JWB - 1 hour (starts after the finish of
page C)

(In this case, JWB has 10 hours worth of tasks, which
takes him 1 day plus 2 hours to complete with his
schedule)

Website Redesign Two - 1 day, 1 hour
   Page A - JWB - 3 hours
   Page B - PHB - 3 Hours
   Page C - JWB - 3 Hours
   Page D - JWB - 1 Hour (starts after finish of Page
C)

(In this case, JWB has 7 hours worth of tasks, which
takes him only 7 hours, but PHB has 3 hours worth of
task, which takes him a day plus an hour to complete)

In Website Redesign 1, Planner shows the time to be 3
hours (not 1d2h).   If there were 3 different people
working on each task, then it might only take 3 hours
because they can work in parallel.  but 1 person must
work serially, and thus it takes him 1d2hours.   Pages
A, B, and C can be done in any order, so making tasks
dependant on each other does not seem the right thing
todo. However, they cannot be done in the same block
of time by the same person.

So that is my situation. I hope I explained it well
enough. What is the best way to represent this sort of
thing in planner?

Thanks,
Jacob


		
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