Multiple people in 'Assigned To' - what's the best way to manage resources?

LisaB:-)

Hi everyone

I'm working on programme reporting across our project portfolio, with a particular focus on resourcing. Currently, on rows in our projects there are several people in the 'Assigned To' column, as they work on the same task. This means that % allocation per task goes out the window. It makes it really difficult to run a resource report for subsections of workers, as it is not a true representation of time on effort. We want to be able to identify resource requirements for the future, and also spot periods of time when workers are over or under-committed, and move resource around accordingly. I've made some enquiries of 10k, and they currently don't have this (slice 'n' dice) functionality when using multiple people in 'Assigned To'.

So I'm stuck. The only thing I can think of is separate columns to identify the workers by their job function, which I'm not adverse to, but I need to think it through and it would make the sheets more cumbersome. Has anyone else faced this problem and if so, how have you solved it?

Stefan

Hi Lisa,

some time ago I've been thinking about the same question.

Honestly, to me it's more an organisational question than a technical one. You have looked into 10k ft and I could add Tempus Resource by Pro Symmetry, but you will experience the same problem there, when linked to Smartsheet cells with multiple contacts.

When you think about it from an organisational side, assigning multiple people to the same task is not a good idea if you are not ok with them all sharing the same % of allocation. Basically, what does it mean to resource availability/workload, if the same task is assigned to multiple people?

Who is responsible for the task? Who do you contact if they don't move forward? Who will be working what amount of time in reality on the task? And when you look into the resource view as a statement of planned work, how can you see who is now available, because someone else did the job?

One option is to micromanage and assign every person to a copy of the job with exact % of allocation. Or you designate a single responsible person. Another option would be to have a smartsheet contact for a team if you repeatedly assign jobs to e.g. "IT Support". The email address for this team must be received by someone in the team and (automatically?) passed to a responsible person. Depending on your needs regarding resource view you may need other solutions.

Hope this helps

Stefan

LisaB:-)

Thank you Stefan, this is very interesting. We have considered all of your points too. Unfortunately, when I assign three people to the same task, it will be 100% for one of them, and any other figure for the remaining two. Micromanagement does seem to be the only real answer here, but nobody wants to do that! I have heard from 10k today that they have indeed just launched the ability to deal with several people in the same 'Assigned To' column, so I shall be taking a look at that asap. Thank you for your thoughts.