Distributing Work to Staff 1

[JAE]

I am a manager of a small staff of engineers and technicians. Part of my responsibilty is to take the projects that we get and assign them to my staff....basically a resource manager of sorts.

What I was wondering - is there any type of simple software out there that isn't too expensive that allows for a quick layout of staff workloads across a calendar?

I'm thinking of some kind of Gant bar chart where individuals may have multiple projects going on at various times, with each project varying in intensity in different weeks?

This would allow a quick review of your staff, who is busy, who is not, and when are they busy or idle? Then I could easily assign new projects, each with their own shedules and intensities to the right people.

 

[rhodie]

I use Microsoft Project, but only for my personal projects. I imagine it would be quite easy to expand it to multiple people.

 

[Slugger926]

I used Excel when I had Engineers working under me. I would look at each job that came in and determine if it was a 1 hour job or a 3 week major project. We allotted 4 to 6 weeks for major projects, 2 weeks for mid major projects, and 3 days for minor 1 hour jobs. We knew exactly how long each job would take from prior experience and added fluff time for emergency jobs and minor jobs.

We could track each engineers workload in excell and grey out each completed job. We could add and subtract collums to obtain a history on how long each job would take. Once we had a history, it was easier to measure workloads. We could also track hours spent on each job as well.

 

[tygerdawg]

Like Rhodie, I've used MSProject as a running project scheduler/tracker. It's NOT cheap (~$500), but very powerful. Can be very useful if you actually learn to use it's features.

I managed a small group of customer application engineers with multiple ongoing projects all of the time, sometimes in-house, sometimes out-. When the salesmen called up and wanted a project done to close a sale, I could predict very well when it could get done. They loved that because they could predict very well back to their customers when it would get done (and predict to the Sales Manager when they could book a sale). I never needed to do it, but MSProject can track actual-vs-estimated costs, do charts, overtime, etc.

I have seen a couple MSProject clones out there on the net that may suit your purposes for less money.

TygerDawg

 

[Slugger926]

I just looked for them, but I couldn't find the master. I haven't had engineers under me here since 2001 (the telecom fall). I am not sure I could legally send the spreadsheets to you anyways since they would contain sensitive customer information.

I have used excell in about 30 different formats for project tracking depending on what Sr. Management wanted. You can even make your own gant charts with Excell using your imagination.

 

[buzzp]

Go to Microsofts web site and see if they have any templates from excel or access (or some other standard office program) for what you want. You would be surprised the templates they have available for free download. They may not have something up your alley because of Microsoft Project but you never know.

 

[BJC]

An important thing to do when distributing work is assigning task so people learn. Don't assign the same people the same kind of work all the time. The same person doing the same person doing the same thing over and over will be looking for a job. The well rounded person may be as well, but if you done it right you have others that can do the work.

 

[manofstl]

I've used M$ Project and Primavera on various projects for the last 3 years. If you are serious about resource management, Primavera Project Planner is the way to go.