Datasheet

15
Chapter 1: Project Management: What It Is, and Why You Should Care
Some resources, such as people, perform their work according to a working
calendar. If a person works an 8-hour day and you assign him to a task that
takes 24 hours to complete, that person has to put in three workdays to com-
plete the task. In comparison, someone with a 12-hour workday takes only
two days to complete the same task. In addition, you can set working and
nonworking days for your human resources, which accommodates variations
such as 4-day weeks or shift work.
You can set different rates for resources, such as a standard hourly rate.
Project applies the appropriate rate based on each resource’s calendar and
work assigned. For more about resources and costs, see Chapter 7.
Several views in Project let you see information about resources and how
their assignments to tasks have an effect on project costs. Figure 1-4 shows
you the Resource sheet, which has columns of information about resources
and their costs.
Figure 1-4:
Resources
charged at
a rate per
hour are the
basis of how
Project tal-
lies costs.
Here’s one other important thing you should know about resources: They
tend to have conflicts. No, I’m not talking about conference room brawls
(although that happens). These conflicts have to do with assigned resources
that become overallocated for their available work time. For example, if you
assign one poor soul to three 8-hour tasks that must all happen on the same
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