Working with a pool/group of resources

Question

How can I effectively work with a pool of team member (nor the usual resource pool share file in project)?

Let me rephrase.

My resources are spread into pools/groups, that share the same skills and are capable of handling one another's work. Lets say:

• Analysis pool has Mary and John
• Developers pool has Alfred, Tony and Ana.

In project, I'm using the pool name has the resource, instead of the actual persons, which I then define the available units to 200% or 300% (2 or 3 resources depending on the pool) and do my planning. Each week, the tasks are then revisited, setting the ones that are completed, and defining the actual resources for the two weeks ahead, in order to have a buffer if the work is done faster. In my case, this is quite nice, because in the long term planning, I actually define that I'll have the availability of two resources, instead of saying Mary and John. If the team grows or shrinks I seek that impact quite fast, otherwise I would have to reassign the work for each resource.

This kinda works, but I don't believe that is the best way, or at least, in my point of view. I don't have full management of working time (setting individual holidays and working hours). Instead I've to do manual calculations to set the units within a range of dates.

Is there a more efficient way to do this in Project 2007?

Answer 1

You can alter the max units available to account for holidays for one of the team of resources. However, unlike setting non-working time, changing max units will not automatically reschedule tasks - it will just mark the resource as overallocated.

You can use the Group field on the Resource Sheet view to assign a group to each individual resource, but then you would have to deal with the individual assignments.