Mastering Microsoft Project 2002

You know by now that a project’s resources are the individuals, teams, facilities, equipment, supplies, and materials needed to complete the project. Without resources, the project’s tasks could never be accomplished. Some projects may require detailed tracking of all of the resources used in the project. A company that manufactures engine parts, for example, needs to know down to the penny what it costs to produce its parts if it wants to compete successfully as a third-tier vendor to the auto companies. A project to plan the company picnic, on the other hand, may not carry the same requirement for strict accounting of every minute of time and dollar spent. The amount of investment you put into tracking resources depends on the goal of the project and the expectations of the people ultimately responsible for the project.

To evaluate whether you want to include resources in your project, consider the following:

• Is it important to track the amount of work done by the people involved with the project?

• Is equipment being used in the project, and if so, is it important to know how long it takes the equipment to do its job?

• Is it important that responsibilities for the work of the project be clearly delineated for the people who will be completing the work?

• Do you need a high level of accuracy in scheduling when individual tasks will be completed, and how long will these tasks take to complete?

• Do you need to manage work assignments to make sure that people and other resources are not over- or underused?

• Do you need assistance from the resources in other departments, teams, or external sources, and do you have to submit a request for their services?

• Do you need to account for the time and costs spent on the project?

All of these questions can be answered by including resources in the project. If you answered “Yes” to any one of them, you probably want to include some level of resource tracking in your project.