Re: [Planner] Resource dependencies

[Waldemar Augustyn <waldemar nxp com>]

Brian Christensen wrote:

> Sheldon,
>
> > I'm trying out Planner for the first time today. It seems to work 
> > very well so far, but I have a
> > question. Is there any way for Planner 0.11 to implement dependencies 
> > between tasks based on
> > (work) resource availability, or do I just have to manually create 
> > task dependencies?
> >
> > Just in case I'm not sufficiently clear, I have a situation where one 
> > "startup" task is a
> > predecessor of about 8 different tasks that are logically parallel. 
> > However, all of the tasks are
> > assigned the same resource at 100% and Planner seems to be perfectly 
> > happy scheduling all of the
> > tasks simultaneously, although the resource can't actually work at 
> > 800% to do all of them in
> > parallel.
>
>
> This question goes back to the definition of what a dependency is. 
> Most of the books say that a task A is dependent on a task B if

That's all true above and below.

However, the described situation is so common, it would be nice to have 
an easy way to resolve these conflicts knowing perfectly well it is 
really the manager's job to put his/her decision behind it.  The tool 
could be quite dumb, for example it could blindly serialize the selected 
tasks in the order they appear.  But as long as the user has a clear 
idea what the tool is doing, it could prove very useful.

I can't wait to see what the "Time Table View" mentioned in the Roadmap 
can do.

> task B can't start until task A is finished. However, even though the 
> tasks are logically parallel, if the same person is going to do both 
> tasks, that person will almost always have a preference in the order 
> they are done. It is convenient to treat the tasks "as if" they were 
> dependent and to define dependencies between them.
>
> It is better to define a "treat them as if" dependency than to let the 
> tool define a random order for the tasks. This shows up most clearly 
> when you are taking status from the team. Say your team member has 
> been assigned tasks A, B, and C. that are logically parallel and so 
> can be done in any order.  Let's assume that the tasks will each take 
> a week to complete. You let the computer assign an arbitrary order to 
> the tasks and it comes up with C then B then A. What does your status 
> look like if the person decides to complete task A first? You would 
> have to report that task C is late and task A is early. You would also 
> have to explain to your management and to your customer why it is not 
> a problem to have a late task. Why create problems for yourself that 
> can be avoided?
>
> If the tasks are relatively small there is another approach you can 
> use. If you plan on taking status weekly and the three tasks together 
> would take a week or less to complete, combine them into one larger 
> task. Then you have only one task to schedule and assign. The fact 
> that the pieces of the larger task can be completed in any order stops 
> being a scheduling concern.
>
> Speaking of enhancements to planner. Instead of an algorithm that 
> schedules tasks based on resource availability, it would be more 
> useful (and easier to implement) if planner would allow the scheduler 
> to enter both "hard" and "soft" (or "as if") dependencies. They could 
> be treated the same by the scheduling algorithm, but the distinction 
> would help the project manager to keep track of which is which.
>
> -- Brian Christensen
>
> P.S. Sheldon, would it be okay with you if I quote your question on my 
> web page?
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.SimpleProjectManagement.com
> (What everyone in your organization needs to know about project 
> management.)
>
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