Can multiple users report status on a task without taking 'ownership'?

[BenM]

Hi all,

This has me stumped, so any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The scenario I need to enable is this:

1. The PM assigns a 20h Task to a team of people, not knowing who will actually be doing the work.

2. Team Member A does 12h work on the Task and Team Member B does 6h. They both submit status updates back to the PM.

3. The PM approves the two updates and the plan now shows Remaining Work as 2h.

The above scenario may sound straightforward but I can't seem to configure Project to enable this.

- Using Team Resources allows the PM to assign the Task appropriately, but the Task doesn't appear in Team Member's My Tasks unless they specifically 'Self-assign team tasks'. When they do, and it's approved by the PM, the Resource Assignment changes to their name. If Team Member B wants to add hours to that task as well, they need to manually add a new task to their My Tasks and find the Task. But the real problem is that when they add their 6h to the Task, the overall work becomes 26h (i.e. the original 20h stays with Team Member A so Team Member B's 6h work is in added to the Task's work.)

- I tried manually listing both resources against the task (i.e. not use Team Resources feature) and put 10h against each resource. Team Member A has done 12 hours instead of their allocated 10h, so the total work for the task becomes 22h instead of 20h (with Team Member B listed as having 4h remaining)

Does anyone have suggestions on other things I could try?

Many thanks,

Ben

[ssanderlin]

Originally Posted by BenM

Hi all,

This has me stumped, so any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The scenario I need to enable is this:

1. The PM assigns a 20h Task to a team of people, not knowing who will actually be doing the work.

2. Team Member A does 12h work on the Task and Team Member B does 6h. They both submit status updates back to the PM.

3. The PM approves the two updates and the plan now shows Remaining Work as 2h.

The above scenario may sound straightforward but I can't seem to configure Project to enable this.

- Using Team Resources allows the PM to assign the Task appropriately, but the Task doesn't appear in Team Member's My Tasks unless they specifically 'Self-assign team tasks'. When they do, and it's approved by the PM, the Resource Assignment changes to their name. If Team Member B wants to add hours to that task as well, they need to manually add a new task to their My Tasks and find the Task. But the real problem is that when they add their 6h to the Task, the overall work becomes 26h (i.e. the original 20h stays with Team Member A so Team Member B's 6h work is in added to the Task's work.)

- I tried manually listing both resources against the task (i.e. not use Team Resources feature) and put 10h against each resource. Team Member A has done 12 hours instead of their allocated 10h, so the total work for the task becomes 22h instead of 20h (with Team Member B listed as having 4h remaining)

Does anyone have suggestions on other things I could try?

Many thanks,

Ben

The behavior you see in Scenario One is expected -- team resources don't support multiple team members self-assigning. In your case, I would recommend that you use Scenario 2.

The behavior you see in Scenario Two is also expected. The PM needs to adjust the remaining work for either the task or just Team Member B down to 8h. There is a logical reason for this. When you input assignment Actual Work, Project considers each assignment separately. In this case, it adds the extra 2h to the resource's Work value, which is why the task's Work expands to 22h from 20h. If you want to maintain the task's Work at 20h, you need to reduce Remaining Work for either the task or the assignment by 2h.

[BenM]

Thanks Stephen,

I'm trying to use Project Server for an agile/scrum type development environment, but I guess the PMs are just going to have to update their assignment info regularly..

Cheers,
Ben