Linköpings universitetSE–581 83 Linköping

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Linköping University | Department of Computer scienceMaster thesis, 30 ECTS | Computer engineering

2016 | LIU-IDA/LITH-EX-A--16/035--SE

Resource planning in a multi-project organization– A case study at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik

Resursplanering i en organisation med flera parallella pro-jekt– En fallstudie utförd på Sanmina i Örnsköldsvik

Marcus Jonsson

Supervisor : Ola LeiflerExaminer : Kristian Sandahl

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Abstract

To plan resources for multiple parallel projects is not an easy task, this has been expe-rienced at a contract manufacturing company called Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik where thisthesis work was performed. The aim of this thesis was to identify the problems with theresource planning process used today and to come up with a feasible solution. Differentfactors such as routines, formalization, time resources and opportunities for recuperationwas also investigated to see if a solution to the identified problems could be used to de-crease the amount of perceived psychological stress reactions. The thesis was divided intothree phases, a pre-study phase, an implementation phase and an evaluation phase. Inthe pre-study phase a series of interviews was performed to get a better understandingof the current problems and this knowledge was then used to see if any existing tool forresource planning could be used. No tool was found that fulfilled all the requirements. Inthe implementation phase a new tool was developed with the requirements found in thepre-study. In the evaluation phase this new tool was tested in workshops on faked projectsand then evaluated in the form of interviews with the attendees. The conclusion from thisevaluation is that this new tool will in fact reduce the perceived amount of stress in thestudied case at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik. To be able to verify that this is the case for anymulti-project organization a much more extensive evaluation would have to be done withreal projects in different companies in different trades.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ola Leifler and Kristian Sandahl, my supervisors at Linköping’s Uni-versity, for all the support they provided and for pointing me in the right direction. LarsEidenvall, my supervisor at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik, for his guidance and help with bothpractical things at the company and with this report. Tord Berggren, Local Manager at San-mina in Örnsköldsvik, for giving me the opportunity to do this thesis work. All the peopleworking at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik that were involved in my thesis work in some way fortaking their time answering my questionnaires and attending workshops or interviews. Lastbut certainly not least, a huge thanks to all my friends and family for encouraging and sup-porting me not only during this thesis work, but also during my entire time at Linköping’sUniversity.

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Contents

Abstract iii

Acknowledgments iv

Contents v

List of Figures vi

List of Tables 1

1 Introduction 21.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3 Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Background 42.1 Contract manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.2 Different types of projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.3 The project process at Sanmina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Theory 63.1 Related research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63.2 Project overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.3 Resource planning in a multi-project organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

4 Method 104.1 Pre-study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

5 Results 175.1 Pre-study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

6 Discussion and Analysis 326.1 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356.3 The work in a wider context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

7 Conclusion 38

Bibliography 39

v

List of Figures

3.1 Factors affecting project overload. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4.1 Structure of the PCF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134.2 Design proposal for a request page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

5.1 Flexite process for booking resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.2 First page of the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225.3 Request page in the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.4 Assignment page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245.5 Time-report page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

vi

List of Tables

4.1 Interview questions for project leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.2 Questionnaire questions for both resources and resource owners . . . . . . . . . . . 144.3 Questionnaire questions for resource owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154.4 Questionnaire questions for resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154.5 Questionnaire questions for first evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154.6 Questions for second evaluation interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5.1 Summary of answers to interview questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175.2 Tool requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195.3 Questionnaire answers from both resources and resource owners . . . . . . . . . . 265.4 Questionnaire answers from resource owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265.5 Questionnaire answers from resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275.6 Evaluation questionnaire answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285.7 Answers from the evaluation interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

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1 Introduction

In this chapter the studied problem, the purpose of this study and the research questions areexplained and motivated.

1.1 Motivation

Project and resource planning is a well studied field of research and is something most com-panies that are executing some form of project struggle with. It does not really matter whatthe company is doing as long as it involves planning a project with multiple resources1 in-volved and they will most likely have encountered some problems related to this. There aredifferent types of problems companies can encounter depending on the prerequisites theyhave, for example a company executing multiple projects at the same time will probably notencounter the same problems as a company executing a single project at a time and vice versa.

A commonly occurring scenario is that multiple projects of varying length and size areplanned and executed in parallel and share the same resources, which is also the case at San-mina in Örnsköldsvik. This study’s main focus will be on problems with resource planningin such multi-project organizations. In 2006 a study by Zik-Viktorsson et al. [24] presented anew construct called project overload which reflects the negative consequences of problemsin multi-project organizations. One of these negative consequences is psychological stressreactions which will be investigated further for the specific case at Sanmina in this thesis.

1.2 Aim

The purpose of this thesis work was to identify problems with the current way of planningresources used in multiple projects at the same time as well as finding or developing a newtool to solve these problems at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik. This was done in order to becomemore efficient when executing projects and to make sure projects are more often completedon time but also to reduce the amount of perceived psychological stress.

1Whenever the word resource is used it refers to a human resource, e.g. a person doing a specific task at acompany, if nothing else is explicitly said.

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1.3. Research questions

1.3 Research questions

The main focus of this thesis work is to identify the problems with resource planning and toidentify a tool as described above. The applied tool will be evaluated in order to answer thefollowing research question(s):

1. Will the use of a tool for resource planning reduce the amount of perceived psycholog-ical stress reactions in a multi-project organization?

1.4 Delimitations

The studied case is about resource planning in projects where the main product produced ishardware and thus the people involved may not be comparable to those in software projectsfor example. It is also worth mentioning that the company only executes projects on accountof external customers, and can thus not control how many projects they have active at a timeto the same extent as a company that only executes internal projects can.

There has been a lot of research on optimal methods of allocating resources for projectsto get the shortest makespans, there are also research on problems related to schedulingresource-constrained activities in an optimal order to get the shortest makespans [3, 4, 20, 2, 7,6]. One example of such a problem is the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem(RCPSP) [13]. It will not be required of the applied tool to the resource planning problem tosupport any kind of optimization or decision support since in this case the company did notneed it. This was partly because the resources are humans which means it is harder to makeestimates for how long an activity will take in contrast to machine or software resources.

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2 Background

2.1 Contract manufacturing

Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik can be classified as a contract manufacturer. A contract manufac-turer is a company that gets hired by external customers to produce a product. The productis in most cases developed and designed by the customer but the contract manufacturer canprovide valuable feedback on the product design in order to minimize production cost orto maximize production speed. The base line is that the customer provides the design forthe product and rents the manufacturers production facilities to create prototypes or to massproduce the product.

There are a lot of benefits to be gained from this type of relationship. The customer canfocus on the design and development of the product and then get feedback from the contractmanufacturer on how to make production more efficient and profitable. They can also savemoney since they don’t need production facilities or equipment required to produce. If thereare many contract manufacturers that are capable of producing the product the customer canchoose the one they think suits the product best or the one they believe will do the best job.The contract manufacturer on the other hand can focus mostly on the production aspect ofthe product.

When the customer is ready to hire a contract manufacturer to produce their productthey will request quotations from several different manufacturers to see which one can givethe best offer. It is then up to the manufacturers to use their competence to minimize theproduction cost and maximize the production speed in order to get the contract.

There are of course some risks involved when outsourcing production to another com-pany. The customer looses some degree of control over the product when it is handed over tothe manufacturer, although the customer is still involved in the production during the wholeprocess. Quality is a quite important factor and it is important that the customer verifiesthat the manufacturers quality standards concur with the customers and that the manufac-turer performs sufficient quality checks of what they produce. New product introduction(NPI) is a process or service that some contract manufacturers offer customers and Sanminain Örnsköldsvik is one of those manufacturers. NPI helps customers with new products tooptimize time to the market by giving feedback on design, prototyping, product verificationand logistics [14, 21].

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2.2. Different types of projects

2.2 Different types of projects

From the results of the interviews in Table 5.1 it was found that there are different types ofprojects executed in parallel at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik. There are short and fast projectsthat stretch over the course of a few weeks and there are long and large projects which cantake more than a year to complete.

Short and fast projects involves less people and require less planning. These projects mostoften involve the production of printed circuit board(PCB) prototypes. Since these contractsmostly come from recurring customers with little to none notice they are hard to plan for inadvance. The frequency of these contracts also varies from time to time depending on thedemand for new prototypes from the customer.

Long and large projects most often involves the production of complete products. Theseprojects have a much longer quotation time and can thus be planned earlier in advance incontrast to the shorter projects. They do however require a lot more resources and often takeslonger than a year to complete, hence they are much harder to plan.

2.3 The project process at Sanmina

When a customer has decided to hire Sanmina to produce their product most of the timesit starts with the customer handing over a list of all the materials needed for the product.Such a list is called a bill of materal (BOM). A component engineer then takes the BOM andchecks which of the items are already in stock and which ones that needs to be ordered. Thecomponent engineer registers a new Sanmina article number for new components, fetchesquotations for them and adds the necessary documentation in order for the purchase divi-sion to be able to purchase them. When the component engineer is done someone from thepurchase division places the actual order for all the missing components. When all the com-ponents have been ordered a product engineer puts together a file containing all the manualsand instructions needed to assemble the product.

When the product have been assembled there is always someone who inspects each cardto look for faults. If the test division has created a test for the product this test is also run onall the assembled cards. These tests will differ from product to product and most of the timesa new test device needs to be created for each unique product. If the product is a printedcircuit board there exists more standardized test methods that can be performed.

When the product has been assembled, inspected and tested it is handed over to theNPI department for validation and if the product passes the validation it can then be mass-produced. This information was obtained by discussions with people at the company.

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3 Theory

This chapter covers all the theory related to this thesis. It will also provide a brief overviewof related research.

3.1 Related research

This section will provide a brief summary of the research related to this study and since it ismainly about multi-project resource planning, the main focus will be on this field.

There has always existed issues regarding resource allocation and planning in both single-and multi-project organizations. There has been a lot of research over the years within thefields of both optimal algorithms and heuristic methods for scheduling resources amongprojects to achieve shorter makespans, on different systems that assists in allocating resourcesamong projects and in the later years people have also started researching the psychologicalaspects of multi-project environments and the consequences of treating humans as resources.

Some of the first systems that were developed and sold commercially to aid in projectmanagement and resource control were RAMPS (Resource Analysis and Multi-ProjectScheduling) [15] produced in the early 1960s by DuPont and Remmington Rand. PMS camelater in the middle of the 1960s produced by IBM and Pert200 also produced in the middle ofthe 1960s by Honeywell. [10]

In 1995 Payne [17] provided a state-of-the-art review about management of multiple si-multaneous projects and identified several problems divided into five different areas; capac-ity, complexity, conflict, commitment and context. Many of the problems he describes arevery similar to the problems found in this study which will be discussed further in Chap-ter 6.1.

In 1999 Hendriks, Voeten and Kroep [12] performed a study on how to optimise an ex-isting allocation process in a large research and development organisation and found thatby adding two factors, project scatter factor and resource dedication profile, the process wassignificantly simplified.

In 2003 Engwall and Jerbrant [5] analyzed why a construct called resource allocation syn-drome is the number one problem when planning resources in a multi-project environment.The conclusion they draw is that the resource allocation syndrome in not a problem in itselfbut rather an expression of many other organizational problems.

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3.2. Project overload

In 2006 Zika-Viktorsson, Sundström and Engwall [24] presented an exploratory study onthe psychological aspects of work in a multiproject environment. The results of this studyshows that almost one third of the respondents were under perceived project overload.

In 2008 Turner, Huemann and Keegan [23] performed research regarding employee wellbeing and ethical treatment in project-oriented organizations and the results from their studyconfirms that this is a problem and that large organizations are struggling with it both becauseit is costly and because they lack an effective resource management system.

What this thesis tries to do is to evaluate if a tool for resource planning that is tailoredto fit the needs of Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik will solve the problems experienced with thecurrent way of planning resources for projects and also to see if it can decrease the amount ofperceived psychological stress reactions for the people involved in this process. Any researchon this specific scenario were not found at the time this thesis work was performed.

3.2 Project overload

A multi-project work situation can be stressful for many of the involved, not only for theproject leader that is planning the projects. Many problems arise when allocating humanresources to projects that affect individual project members as well as the project leaders andresource owners.

Project overload is a construct used in the study by Zika-Viktorsson et al. [24] that reflects"perceived fragmentation, disruption and inefficiency, caused by switching between assign-ments for separate but simultaneous projects". This construct will be used in this study aswell with the same meaning.

Factors affecting project overload

Zika-Viktorsson et al. [24] also proposes a model for which factors they think affects themulti-project work situation that leads to project overload and can be found in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1: Factors affecting project overload.

"Number of projects" reflects how many projects a person is involved in and is assumedto increase project overload since that person will have to switch between work assignmentsmore often. The amount of project overload this will increase is dependent on the types ofprojects and assignments, content, uniqueness and scope.

"Routines" and "Formalization" reflects the routines or processes used in projects in orderto achieve a standardized way of working. However if these routines or processes showsto be too bureaucratic or adds unnecessary overhead it can increase the amount of projectoverload.

"Task resemblance" reflects the resemblance between tasks across projects or assignments.If some of the tasks are very similar some of the techniques or knowledge can be reused whichreduces the amount of effort required and can thus reduce the amount of project overload.

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3.3. Resource planning in a multi-project organization

"Time resources" reflects the amount of time available to perform tasks and the time todeadlines. If a person gets less time than needed to perform a task it will increase the amountof stress that person feels which increases the amount of project overload.

"Opportunities for recuperation" reflects the amount of time given between projects toreflect over the work done in order to improve for the next project. If the company pushes anew project right away when the previous one is done the people involved will get no suchtime to reflect which will increase the amount of project overload.

"Challenges" reflects how challenging a project is perceived for the people involved. If acertain assignments feels challenging it can be a great motivation for the person doing it andthus reduce the amount of project overload.

"Authority" reflects adequate authority. Since having adequate authority can make a per-son feel more in control of stressful situations because he can make relevant decisions whichin turn will reduce the amount of project overload.

"Feedback" reflects the amount of feedback given to people involved in projects. It hasbeen shown to improve employee satisfaction when given personal feedback and will thusreduce project overload

The factors that will be evaluated further in this study are routines, formalization, timeresources and opportunities for recuperation. The reason why these factors were chosenis because they felt relevant to all three types of people involved in the resource planning,resources, resource owners and project leaders. The number of projects people are involvedin really depends on how many contracts the company can get and cannot be changed witha tool for resource planning. Task resemblance is not considered because each person alwayshas the same specific role in the projects and most often performs the same tasks, which a toolfor resource planning will not affect. Challenges, Authority and Feedback will not be affectedby a tool for resource planning either and are thus not considered.

Consequences of project overload

In the study by Zika-Viktorsson et al. [24] they also propose four hypotheses for what the con-sequences of project overload are: (H1) There is a negative relationship between project over-load and adherence to time schedules, (H2) there is a negative relationship between projectoverload and development of professional skills, (H3) there is a negative relationship be-tween project overload and participation in work for improvement of routines and methods,(H4) there is a positive relationship between project overload and psychological stress reac-tions. The results of their study shows that hypothesis 2 and 4 was fully supported. However,hypothesis 1 was partly supported.

In this study hypothesis 4 will be evaluated further since stress is the consequence a toolfor resource planning is believed to affect.

3.3 Resource planning in a multi-project organization

The problems that arise when planning projects or resources differ slightly depending on acouple of factors. For example if a company is executing a single project a time they probablywont experience the same problems as a company executing multiple projects at the sametime. If the projects also share resources among each other even more problems arise. In thestudied case at Sanmina in Örnsköldsvik multiple projects are executed at the same time withvarying length and size which also share resources among each other.

In a study by Engwall and Jerbrant [5] they identify a couple of mechanisms related tothe resource allocation problem in a multi-project organization that are closely related to thisparticular case. They studied two empirical cases and in both of them the organizations hada centralized resource planning system which allocated resources to projects based on timeschedules. The problem here was that there was almost always some project that laggedbehind the schedule and hence it made the schedule created by the system impossible to use.

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3.3. Resource planning in a multi-project organization

Over commitment means that there are not enough resources within the company tomatch the amount of resources needed by projects. This is a common problem since compa-nies most often do not want to turn down projects since they will then loose an opportunityto make more money, especially if a company is executing projects for external customers andare competing against other companies to land a contract. One of the selling points are oftento promise a short deadline. Spühler and Biagini [22] puts it very accurate as "there is hardlya company to be found which does not launch more projects than it can master with availableresources".

For this study an additional factor was believed to influence the amount of perceivedproject overload called overview. This factor reflects slightly different issues depending ofthe role of a person. For a resource working in many projects at the same time it is thought tobe important that it is easy for that person to get a good overview of what needs to be doneand how much time it is supposed to take. If this is not possible it will increase the amountof project overload. For a project leader it is important to be able to get a overview over whateveryone in his or hers projects are doing at the moment or for example if anyone is behindtheir schedule. If this is not possible the project leader can feel in loss of control and thus theamount of project overload will increase. For a resource owner it means basically the same asfor a project leader.

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4 Method

4.1 Pre-study

Interviews

To get an understanding of the current problems with resource planning at the company,interviews were conducted with each one of the project leaders. The reason why the projectleaders were chosen for the interviews was because they are the ones most involved andaffected by the current issues with the resource planning. Another reason was that theypossessed the most knowledge about the current situation.

The interviews were semi-structured with a predefined set of questions. However, thetypes of questions were a mix of open-ended and structured. In the beginning of the interviewthe interviewer explained to the interviewee why he was doing the interviews and that it iscompletely anonymous, he gave a brief outline of the interview and the different types ofquestions and he also explained why he wanted to record the interview and asked if it wasokay to do so. This was done in order to gain trust from the interviewee. The reason towhy the interviews were recorded is simply because the author performed the interviewsalone. Anyone who has performed any kind of interview knows that it is hard to activelyask questions, listen and take notes at the same time so to make sure nothing important wasmissed the recording was used as a backup. You should preferably be two interviewers, onewho asks the questions and one who take notes.

The interview questions were divided into three categories; general questions about theproject leader and the projects, questions about the actual problem and questions about thenew tool. First, Structured questions were used to gather general information about theproject leader and his tasks in the company and to gain more knowledge about the differ-ent types of projects and how they were normally executed. Then a mix of structured andopen-ended questions were used to gather information about the perceived problem and anew tool that were to be used for the resource planning process. A complete list of the inter-view questions can be found in Table 4.1.

Some of the questions asked were based on the problem areas described in Section 3.3.For example to determine if over commitment was an issue questions were asked about thedeadlines of projects and the resources available when starting a new project such as question6. One of the factors increasing project overload was the number of projects involved in

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4.1. Pre-study

simultaneously and thus some questions were asked to identify any issues related to thissuch as questions 2, 3 and 7.

Table 4.1: Interview questions for project leaders

Questions about the project leader and the projects1 What kind of projects are you supervising? (hardware/software/mix)2 How many projects do you usually supervise simultaneously?3 How many resources are usually involved in your projects?4 How much time do your projects usually take?5 Are all resources needed for your projects working locally or are there any resources

based abroad?6 When a new project is started, is the deadline determined based on how many re-

sources are currently available?7 The resources working in your projects are they working in other projects at the same

time as well?8 What is the current process when a resource needs to be scheduled for a project?

Questions about the problem9 How would you describe the problem the new tool should solve?10 How does this problem affect your work?11 Who do you think gets affected negatively by this problem?12 How important do you believe it is to solve this problem?

Questions about the new tool13 Who do you think will use this new tool?14 What tools or applications are you using today to help you plan projects?15 What do you want to be able to do with this new tool?16 What kind of statistics and feedback would you like to receive after a finished

project?17 What positive effects do you think a new tool that solves this problem would yield?18 Is there anything else you would like to add?

Evaluation of existing applications

There are numerous existing applications for resource scheduling or planning. Since theycould possibly be used to solve the problem described they had to be evaluated. The evalua-tion of these applications were based on the functionality extracted from the interviews withthe project leaders along with some additional requirements from the company.

The evaluation process were divided into the following steps:

1. First, the process of finding existing applications were performed. To identify existingapplications Googles search engine was used with keywords: resource, planning, sys-tem, application, software, staff and scheduling. Applications were chosen based onthe initial description on their website. Only if they seemed to be able to do what waswanted of the project leaders they were included in the evaluation.

2. When the search results from Google with the stated keywords felt exhausted a moreformal evaluation was performed on the selected applications. Each application wasevaluated with the functionality requirements extracted from the interviews as a basis.Some additional requirements from the company were also used. The complete list ofapplications and the results from the evaluation can be found under the results chapter.

3. When the evaluation was complete a decision was made if any of the applicationsshould be used or not.

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4.2. Implementation

Evaluation of flexiteBPMS

The company is using flexiteBPMS to manage their business processes. To see if this systemcould be used to solve the problem described an attempt was made to create a process withthe desired functionality.

Flexeurope AB that has created flexiteBPMS has also created a plugin for an applicationcalled 2c8 which is a modeling tool that can be used to create process models. With the helpof this tool and the flexite plugin, a flexite-process can be created then imported and run inflexiteBPMS. This tool was used to create the flexite-process for evaluation and it was thenrun using flexiteBPMS.

Requirements elicitation

The requirements for a tool that could solve the identified issues and that had the desiredfunctionality was gathered in a number of ways. The first source was interviews with theproject leaders. The questions were asked in such a way that the project leaders could ex-press what kind of functionality they would want in a tool to help with resource planning andthus some requirements could be extracted from their answers. Another source was meetingswith the head of NPI and resource owners. These requirements were extracted through dis-cussions about a new tool and through observations. Last, some of the requirements wereextracted from usability literature.

4.2 Implementation

The results from the pre-study showed that no existing tool could be used and thus a new onewere to be developed. Another argument for not using any existing tool was that the com-pany already had their own application framework called Production Control Framework(PCF) that had been developed internally. The PCF was written in C# with the frameworkASP.NET webforms. The company also had a number of applications running in the PCF thata new tool preferably should be able to interact with.

The functionality the PCF provided was user authentication against the company’s activedirectory (AD), user authorization using an application-specific group-based rights system,pdf-report generation from an xml-template, a cron1-like task runner that could be used toperform specific tasks in an application periodically at specific times, system-wide messagebroadcasts, a predefined protocol used for interaction between applications and automaticgeneration of the application interface from an xml-template. A flow-chart describing thestructure of the PCF can be found in Figure 4.1. In the PCF much of the base functionalityalready existed and thus it made sense to write the new application using it.

As a software development process the well known waterfall model was used. The wa-terfall model is a sequential design process which means that each step in the process has tobe done before the next can start. The steps in the waterfall model are requirements, design,implementation, verification and maintenance. Requirements were elicited by interviewingproject leaders and the head of NPI as described in the previous section. The tool designwas created by using the requirements as basis with the help of brainstorming, sketching anddiscussions with the head of NPI. An early design proposal for a request page can be foundin Figure 4.2 for comparison with the final application. Each row represents either a requestfor a specific person or a request for a resource type. To the left the name of the person orresource type that is requested can be seen, along with the workload for that user. Typi-cally, 100% means that a person works eight hours per day. For resource types, the combinedamount of workload for everyone with that role is displayed. To the right of these namesthe actual schedule for that person or resource type is displayed. The red and green boxes

1Cron is a software utility that can be used in unix-based systems to schedule jobs to be performed periodicallyat specific times.

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4.3. Evaluation

Figure 4.1: Structure of the PCF

represent different activities that person or resource type is assigned to and also shows theassigned workload which has the same meaning as before, 100% means eight hours in thisexample. Each column represents one day and the date and week can be seen at the top. Amore detailed explanation of the entire tool can be found in Chapter 5.2.

The implementation was done using the existing PCF that was described above. Since thePCF was written in C# and ASP.NET webforms the new application used that language andframework as well. No formal verification method was used to test the application and thereason for that was simply lack of time to do so.

4.3 Evaluation

The purpose of this tool was to solve the problems identified in the pre-study which wasmostly related to project overload. In order to evaluate the amount of perceived project over-load for the people currently working in these projects a questionnaire was sent to all theproject members and resource owners involved in the multi-project work situation before thetool was installed and used. This questionnaire contained questions related to the selectedfactors related to project overload. These factors were routines, time resources, formaliza-tion, psychological stress reactions and opportunities for recuperation. Most of the questionswas taken from [24] but was reformulated to positive statements rather than negative. One

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4.3. Evaluation

Figure 4.2: Design proposal for a request page.

of the issues identified in the pre-study was the lack of ability to get an overview of all theprojects regarding who was working with what and when. This is potentially also an issuefor the project members and resource owners, thus some additional questions were designedspecifically for this study regarding a factor called overview.

Most of the questions were the same for project members and resource owners but someof them differed. The questions that were for both resources and resource owners can befound in Table 4.2, questions specifically for resource owners can be found in Table 4.3 andquestions specifically designed for project members can be found in Table 4.4. All of thequestions were proposed as a statement and the person answering could choose a numberon a linear scale between 1 and 5, where 1 meant strongly disagree and 5 meant stronglyagree. The table specifies which of the factors the question belongs to.

Table 4.2: Questionnaire questions for both resources and resource owners

Routines/Formalization1 I have good routines and methods to follow when performing tasks in the projects2 All the routines and methods for performing tasks in the projects feels necessary and

are easy to follow and understandTime resources

3 The result of my work in the projects are rarely characterized by lack of time4 I never waste time because of switching between projects more than necessary

Psychological stress reactions5 I rarely feel stressed out or exhausted DURING work hours6 I rarely feel stressed out or exhausted AFTER work hours because of something work

related7 I can always let go of work related problems that occurred during work hours when

I go home for the dayOpportunities for recuperation

8 I always have time to reflect over what I did good or bad after a task is finished inorder to improve

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4.3. Evaluation

Table 4.3: Questionnaire questions for resource owners

Overview1 I have good control over how much time my resources spend on different projects2 I have good control over what projects my resources are involved in3 I can easily get a good overview of what all my resources are working on at the

moment

Table 4.4: Questionnaire questions for resources

Overview1 I always know what specific tasks I shall perform in each one of the projects I am

involved in2 I always know how many hours I should spend on performing specific tasks3 I always know in which order I am supposed to perform my assigned tasks for the

projects I am involved in4 I always know what tasks I am supposed to perform in the nearest future

When a first version of the tool was ready a workshop was held together with four re-source owners and four project leaders. Before this workshop a few simple faked projectswere designed and given out to the project leaders. The purpose of this workshop was tosimulate a real scenario with the use of the new tool. The faked projects were designed sothat project leader would have to request the same type of resources at the same point in thefuture such that the resource owners would have to prioritize who was given the resourceand when. The workshop started with the project leaders creating their assigned project inthe tool and then started to request resources for their activities, it was then up to the resourceowners to assign resources to the project leaders. After the workshop a small questionnairewas sent out to the participants which can be found in Table 4.5.

Table 4.5: Questionnaire questions for first evaluation

1 In what way do you think this tool will improve or worsen the resource planning?2 How do you think the use of this tool will affect the people involved in the resource

planning?3 What problems do you see with this tool that has to be fixed?4 Other opinions?

This workshop uncovered some issues regarding the request-process that will be pre-sented in the result chapter later. When most of these issues were fixed another workshop washeld, this time with the head of the NPI-department and the local manager at Sanmina in Örn-sköldsvik which also works as a resource owner. This time the head of the NPI-departmentacted as a project leader and the local manager acted as a resource owner. The scenario thistime was that the resource owner started with creating an internal project and booked some ofhis resources for that. Then the project leader created a project in the tool and started askingfor resources for that at the same dates as the internal project which would result in overtimeif the resource owner did not reschedule or reject the project leaders request for resources.This went on for a while until they both felt they had tested the tool enough and could seethe potential benefits or disadvantages. After the testing the author conducted an interviewwith both of them together and the questions for this interview can be found in Table 4.6.

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4.3. Evaluation

Table 4.6: Questions for second evaluation interview

1 In which way do you think this tool will improve or worsen the resource planningprocess?

2 In which way do you think this tool will affect the people working in projects thatnow will get their assigned tasks in a schedule so that they can always see what theyare supposed to do and how many hours to spend doing it?

3 Do you think the people working in projects will have to do less switching betweentheir assigned tasks?

4 Do you think the people working in projects will get more time between projects ortasks to reflect over the work that was done in order to improve to the next similartask or project?

5 Do you think this tool will reduce the amount of stress people experience?6 Do you think resource owners will feel more in control over their resources than

before?7 Do you think project leaders will feel more confident that a resource they have been

assigned will do their assigned task when promised when using this tool instead ofjust agreeing verbally with the resource owner?

8 Do you think it will be easier for the people working in projects to know how manyhours they are supposed to spend on an assigned task and what they are supposedto do?

9 What would make a tool like this one even better and easier to use?10 What disadvantages do you see with using a tool like this?11 what problems do you think could come from using a tool like this for resource

planning?

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5 Results

Here all the results achieved in the study are presented. The study was divided into threedifferent phases, pre-study, implementation and evaluation.

5.1 Pre-study

There were a total of four interviews with four different project leaders. Table 5.1 shows asummary of the answers for all interview questions listed in Table 4.1. The numbering of thesummaries corresponds to the numbering of the questions. From these answers some of thefinal requirements was extracted, these can be found in Table 5.2 with the source: interviews.

Table 5.1: Summary of answers to interview questions

Questions about the project leader and the projectsWhat kind of projects are you super-vising? (hardware/software/mix)

All of the project leaders are leading hardware projects.It can be a small printed circuit board or a completeproduct.

How many projects do you usuallysupervise simultaneously?

All of the project leaders are always leading multipleprojects at the same time.

How many resources are usually in-volved in your projects?

The amount of people involved differs with the size ofthe project but the type of people involved are usuallythe same.

How much time do your projectsusually take?

The amount of time a project requires is very different.Small projects for a single PCB takes around 4 weekswhile a large project for a complete project can take overa year to finish.

Are all resources needed for yourprojects working locally or are thereany resources based abroad?

All the resources are available at the local plant.

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5.1. Pre-study

When a new project is started, is thedeadline determined based on howmany resources are currently avail-able?

The amount of resources available is not something thatis taken into account when deciding the deadline fornew projects. For smaller projects it is the access to cer-tain components that are the deciding factor. One partof getting customers is to sell short deadlines.

The resources working in yourprojects are they working in otherprojects at the same time as well?

All the resources are always working in multipleprojects at the same time.

What is the current process when aresource needs to be scheduled for aproject?

There are currently no defined process. When a projectleader needs a resource they either go talk to the re-source directly to give them work to do or they go tothe resource owner who then assigns a resource. Every-thing is agreed upon verbally.

Questions about the problemHow would you describe the prob-lem the new tool should solve?

The main problem is that there are no defined processfor how project leaders should book resources. Sinceit currently is done verbally it is hard to keep track ofwho is doing what and to get a good overview of allthe projects you are leading. It is also hard to notifyeveryone involved when changes occur.

How does this problem affect yourwork?

It is very stressful. Projects get delayed and you have tocome up with quick solutions to solve problems. Onebig issue is that project leaders have to run around andtalk to people to make sure they are actually doing whatthey are supposed to do. The current way of workingmakes it so that project leaders have to "fight" for re-source and it is often the one who fights the hardest thatgets the resource he needs. To get a good overview theproject leaders have to walk around and talk to every-one involved.

Who do you think gets affected neg-atively by this problem?

Everyone involved; the resources, resource owners,project leaders and the customer. The company loosestrust from customers when projects cannot be deliv-ered on time. Resources cannot know what to prioritizewhen project leaders come and talk to them directly andthey get no overview of what kind of work is comingin the future. Everyone would feel better with a betteroverview of the projects and a more structured way ofassigning work to resources.

How important do you believe it is tosolve this problem?

Very important. We would save a lot of time if projectleaders would not have to chase resources and the workwould be less stressful. It would also mean fewer sur-prises.

Questions about the new toolWho do you think will use this newtool?

Project leaders, resource owners and resources.

What tools or applications areyou using today to help you planprojects?

Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel for planning ofprojects, agile for document handling

What do you want to be able to dowith this new tool?

See Table 5.2

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5.1. Pre-study

What kind of statistics and feedbackwould you like to receive after a fin-ished project?

The ability to see how much time was actually spent ondifferent activities, the ability to see how much time intotal was spent on projects.

What positive effects do you thinka new tool that solves this problemwould yield?

Less money wasted, less re-planning necessary, abilityto give customers better feedback, be more effective, re-sources knows what to do and what to prioritize, lessconfusion, less stress, everyone will know what to doand when, easier to see if more or less resources areneeded, easier to follow status of a project, less risksfor delay, ability to notice earlier when something in theprocess stops, less surprises, less manual work.

Table 5.2: Tool requirements

ID Description Source1 Three different types of users should have access to

the tool with different access rights, project leaders,resource owners and resources.

Interviews.

2 Resources shall be able to view a schedule wherethey can see what project they should be workingon, how much and when.

Interviews.

3 Resources shall be able to report how much timethey actually spent on an activity when it is done.

Interviews.

4 Resources shall be notified whenever they are as-signed to an activity.

Interviews.

5 Resources shall be notified whenever any changesoccur in assignments they are involved in.

Interviews.

6 Resource owners shall be able to view a sched-ule for all their resources where they can see whatproject(s) they are working on, how much andwhen.

Interviews.

7 Resource owners shall be able to assign resources torequests made by project leaders.

Interviews.

8 Resource owners shall be able to view current work-load for specific resources when assigning to re-quests.

Interviews.

9 Resource owners shall be able to suggest a new timefor requests made by project leaders instead of as-signing a resource.

Interviews.

10 Resource owners shall be able to remove a resourcefrom an assignment

Meetings.

11 Resource owners shall be able to change the time foran assignment.

Meetings.

12 Resource owners shall be notified whenever new re-quests are made by project leaders.

Interviews.

13 Resource owners shall be notified whenever re-quests are canceled or changed by project leaders.

Interviews

14 Project leaders shall be able to fill in when and howmuch they need different types of resources.

Interviews.

15 Project leaders shall be able to see the current work-load when filling in how much they need a resource.

Interviews.

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5.1. Pre-study

16 Project leaders shall be able to view the schedule forspecific resources where they can see what projectsthey are working on, how much and when.

Interviews.

17 A request shall have three different states; pending,confirmed or revised. It is pending if the resourceowner haven’t processed it yet, confirmed if the re-source owner has accepted the request and assigneda resource to it and revised if the resource owner hassuggested a new time.

Meetings.

18 Project leaders shall be notified if any changes occurin the projects they are involved in.

Interviews.

19 Project leaders shall be able to cancel requests. Usability.20 Project leaders shall be able to add new requests to

existing projects.Usability.

21 Project leaders shall be able to view all changes in aproject.

Interviews.

22 Project leaders shall be able to place requests on spe-cific resources or a type of resource.

Interviews.

23 The tool shall provide a way to add/remove typesof resources.

Usability.

24 The tool shall provide a way to add/remove re-sources.

Usability.

25 The tool shall provide a way to set/change/removethe type of a resource.

Usability.

26 Resource owners shall be able to enter resourceleave or any other temporary holiday.

Meetings.

The search for existing solutions on the internet resulted in a total of seven different tools.These tools were:

1. 10 000ft plans [1]

2. Ganttic resource management [9]

3. Hub planner [18]

4. Resource guru scheduling software [11]

5. Liquid planner [19]

6. Allocate [16]

7. Float [8]

For each one of these tools the requirements elicited from the interviews were tested. Ifthe tool did not fulfill all of the requirements it was ruled out as a possible candidate. The re-quirement that every single one of these tools did not fulfill was the ability for project leadersto request resources and get an approval from that resources supervisor. In all the cases theproject leader could assign resources as they pleased without any kind of approval or feed-back from the resource owner first. Another requirement that most tools did not fulfill wasthat resources should be able to report time on activities they are assigned to. The conclusionfrom all this was that any of the tools found online could not be used.

The next step in the pre-study was to evaluate if FlexiteBPMS could be used to create aprocess that fulfilled all the requirements. To do this a process model was created with theflexite plugin for 2c8 modeling tool. This process model can be found in Figure 5.1, The green

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5.2. Implementation

boxes defines an activity, the black boxes defines input and output between activities, the bluearrows defines who performs the activity and the red circle denotes the end of the process.The process starts when a project leader has planned a project, all its activities and needsresources for it. The project leader specifies which resources he needs, when, how manyhours and for which activity. A request are then sent to each of the corresponding supervisorsof the resources that was requested. The supervisor examines the request and determines ifit should be accepted. If not, he must suggest a new time when the project leader can getthe resources he needs. This loop goes on until the project leader and supervisor has agreed.When everything is decided, the specified resource is assigned to the activity in the projectleaders project.

Figure 5.1: Flexite process for booking resources

The base functionality of flexite can only handle simple html forms that are sent aroundto different people involved in the process where they enter or review information. Thisinformation can be from previous people or from databases. The created process was ableto run but there were alot of functionality missing. It would require the project leader toinitiate the process once for each resource they wanted, thus they could not request manyresources at the same time. The functionality to be able to see a resources current workloadwhen requesting proved to be a little too complicated to accomplish in flexite. It also lackedthe ability for resources to report time for an activity once they were assigned to it. Theconclusion here was also that flexite could not be used to accomplish the functionality thatwas wanted and a decision was made to create a new application inside the company’s PCF.

5.2 Implementation

The new tool was implemented as an application inside a framework the company had devel-oped for own use. This framework is called PCF and the functionality it provides is describedin section 4.2. The basic structure of the application is rather simple. The first page displaysa list with buttons generated by the framework, this first page can be seen in Figure 5.2. Eachbutton takes the user to another page with the functionality described by the button. The flowof a resource request is basically the same as the process created in flexite which can be found

21

5.2. Implementation

in Figure 5.1 but with enhanced functionality such as time reporting and a schedule whichdisplays the workload for resources. All users cannot see all buttons. The buttons resourcescan see are "View schedule", "View assignments" and "Report time". The buttons resourceowners can see are "Manage activities", "View schedule", "View resource requests", "View re-source type requests", "Internal", "View assignments", "Report time" and "Generate reports".The buttons project leaders can see are "Manage customers", "Manage projects", "Manage ac-tivities", "Request resources", "View schedule", "View resource requests", "View resource typerequests", "View assignments", "Report time" and "Generate reports".

Figure 5.2: First page of the application.

When a project leader has planned a project and wants to request resources he first hasto add the customer to the tool if it doesn’t exist already, this is done by clicking "Managecustomers". When the customer exists it is possible to create a project connected to that cus-tomer. When the project is created the project leader can enter all the activities along witha description, how many hours it is estimated to take, how many hours that are are billableto the customer and if it should be possible to report time against that activity or not, thiscan also be changed at a later time. When all the activities are created, the project leader canstart requesting resources for the activities created. The flow of a request is basically the sameas the process shown in Figure 5.1. This is done by clicking the "Request resources"-buttonwhich then shows the request page as seen in Figure 5.3. Here the project leader can select aspecific person or just a resource type. By selecting a resource type the project leader can letthe resource owner know that he does not need a specific person, just someone with that spe-cific role. In Figure 5.3 a person, Marcus Jonsson, and a resource type, Product Engineer, hasbeen selected. To the right the schedule for that person and resource type is displayed wherered means internal assignments and blue means assignments to external projects. To the leftthe project leader can select which activity that person or resource type is needed for and for

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5.2. Implementation

how many percent per day. The days that are marked yellow in the schedule is the selecteddays, the project leader can select which days the resource is needed by simply clicking in theschedule to select or deselect dates. To add another row a person or resource type is selectedin the drop-down lists at the bottom. When the project leader has added all the resources heneeds for the project they are requested by pressing the "Request"-button. When the buttonis clicked a mail-notification is sent out to all the resource owners of the requested resourcessaying that there are new requests waiting for review.

Figure 5.3: Request page in the application.

When the resource owner logs in to the application he can view all requests by clickingthe "View resource requests"- or "View resource type requests"-button. A list then displays allthe pending requests and the resource owner can select one to get more information, whenviewing a single request it looks a lot like the detailed view over an assignment shown inFigure 5.4. This view shows all the information about the request and the resource owner canmake changes to start-date, end-date, workload and resource. If it is a resource type requestthe resource owner can see the schedule for each one of the resources with that role andchoose the one he wants to assign to that request. If the resource owner decides to make anychanges to the request it is sent back to the project leader which also can make changes andrequest it again or request it again with the suggested changes made by the resource owner.A request can go back and forth between the project leader and resource owner until theycan agree on all the parameters. When the resource owner accepts a request the resource isassigned to the activity and gets notified by mail.

The resource owner can also change an assignment that has already been approved, how-ever, when he does both the project leader and the resource involved in that assignment willget notified right away. The assignment page can be seen in Figure 5.4.

When a resource has been assigned to an activity it is possible for him or her to report timefor that activity as long as the project leader has made it possible to do so in the activity’ssettings. The page for time reporting can be seen in Figure 5.5. What is shown is a gridwith activities to the left and dates at the top. By clicking a cell that corresponds to a dateand an activity the resource can report hours. In each cell under the dates there are twonumbers shown, one to the left and one to the right. The one to the left shows how many

23

5.2. Implementation

hours are reported for that date and activity for the signed in user. The one to the right showsthe number of hours that the signed in user are assigned for. Even though the resource arebooked for a certain amount of hours, it does not prevent the user from reporting more hoursthan he or she is assigned for. It does not prevent the user to report time on dates outside theassignment either, it is merely there as guidance.

Figure 5.4: Assignment page

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5.3. Evaluation

Figure 5.5: Time-report page

5.3 Evaluation

Before the application was implemented a questionnaire was sent to all resources and re-source owners that were involved in NPI projects. The questionnaire was sent to 48 resourcesand 9 resource owners. 35 resources and 6 resource owners answered the questionnaire andthe results can be found in Table 5.3, Table 5.4 and Table 5.5. The majority of the resourcesthat did not answer the questionnaire felt like they were rarely involved in NPI projects sothey thought it was better not to take the questionnaire at all. Some of the people that got thequestionnaire quit their job during the course of this study and did not answer it either.

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5.3. Evaluation

Table 5.3: Questionnaire answers from both resources and resource owners

Statement 1 (Totally disagree) 2 3 4 5 (Totally agree)I have good routines andmethods to follow whenperforming tasks in theprojects

5% 34% 34% 24% 3%

All the routines andmethods for performingtasks in the projects feelsnecessary and are easy tofollow and understand

5% 32% 34% 26% 3%

The result of my workin the projects are rarelycharacterized by lack oftime

24% 39% 27% 7% 3%

I never waste time be-cause of switching be-tween projects more thannecessary

41% 22% 22% 15% 0%

I rarely feel stressed outor exhausted DURINGwork hours

17% 39% 24% 15% 5%

I rarely feel stressed outor exhausted AFTERwork hours because ofsomething work related

17% 27% 29% 17% 10%

I can always let go ofwork related problemsthat occurred duringwork hours when I gohome for the day

12% 27% 32% 19% 10%

I always have time to re-flect over what I did goodor bad after a task is fin-ished in order to improve

39% 32% 24% 5% 0%

Table 5.4: Questionnaire answers from resource owners

Statement 1 (Totally disagree) 2 3 4 5 (Totally agree)I have good control overhow much time my re-sources spend on differ-ent projects

0% 33% 33% 33% 0%

I have good controlover what projects myresources are involved in

0% 33% 0% 67% 0%

I can easily get a goodoverview of what all myresources are working onat the moment

17% 33% 17% 33% 0%

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5.3. Evaluation

Table 5.5: Questionnaire answers from resources

Statement 1 (Totally disagree) 2 3 4 5 (Totally agree)I always know what spe-cific tasks I shall performin each one of the projectsI am involved in

3% 17% 37% 37% 6%

I always know how manyhours I should spend onperforming specific tasks

29% 17% 34% 17% 3%

I always know in whichorder I am supposed toperform my assignedtasks for the projects I aminvolved in

9% 31% 31% 26% 3%

I always know what tasksI am supposed to performin the nearest future

3% 26% 31% 37% 3%

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5.3. Evaluation

When the tool was done and ready for use it was tested on fake projects in a workshopwith four project leaders and four resource owners as was described in the method chapter.After this workshop a small questionnaire with questions about the tool were sent out toeach one of the participants. A summary of the answers for this questionnaire are presentedin Table 5.6.

Table 5.6: Evaluation questionnaire answers

Question Answer summaryIn what way do you think this toolwill improve or worsen the resourceplanning?

The new tool will improve the resource planning be-cause today there are a big variation in how differ-ent groups allocates resources. The advantages of us-ing a tool like this has to outweigh the administrativework required. It will demand better planning from theproject leader which will mean it will be more obviousfor resources, resource owners and project leaders whatthe resources are supposed to work with. It will be eas-ier to follow the progress of a project and for resourceowners to see what their resources are working on and ifthey have too few or too many resources. Project leaderswont have to “chase” resources but it might be harder toget a resource when the need for one cannot be plannedso far ahead.

How do you think the use of this toolwill affect the people involved in theresource planning?

There will be a more obvious handshake betweenproject leaders and resource owners when allocating re-sources. Project leaders can see what resources theyhave been assigned and resource owners can see theworkload for all their resources. It will however requireeveryone involved in the projects to start using this toolso no one tries to take shortcuts to get resources fastersuch as talking directly to a resource instead of goingthrough the resource owner. It will require more plan-ning and time estimation from the project leader both inthe beginning of new projects and during the course ofongoing projects but this will hopefully make it easier tolead projects and lower the need to “chase” resources.

What problems do you see with thistool that has to be fixed?

It has to be possible to request a total amount of hoursbetween two dates instead of filling out percent or hoursper day. It also has to be possible for resource owners toassign more than one resource for the same activity andto assign different amount of hours each day. It wouldalso be great if you could see the workload for a biggertime span at the same time. Before we start using thistool it would be nice to get some kind of education onhow to use the tool and a user manual.

Other opinions? The tool is still in a very early development stage and itcould need more work to make it more easier to use butit still feels like this is what Sanmina needs and wouldbenefit from. It would also be beneficial to have somekind of project planning functionality integrated in thistool as well. There may be a risk that this tool will beused by the management group to lower the amount ofresources available in the long run.

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5.3. Evaluation

The issues uncovered in this workshop were fixed and then a second workshop were heldtogether with the head of the NPI-department and the local manager as was also describedin the method chapter. After this workshop an interview was conducted and a summary ofthis interview is presented in Table 5.7

Table 5.7: Answers from the evaluation interview.

Question Answer summaryIn which way do you think this toolwill improve or worsen the resourceplanning process?

It will clarify where you need resources and what theresources are used for, what is good about this is thatyou can assign resources for both internal and externalprojects, because you are always working with both. Itwill also clarify for the project leaders since they can seewhat resources are available so that they can make rea-sonable demands. It could cause irritation as all otherflawed software if it is hard to use but what we haveseen so far of this tool it is fully functional but could ofcourse be improved.

In which way do you think this toolwill affect the people working inprojects that now will get their as-signed tasks in a schedule so thatthey can always see what they aresupposed to do and how many hoursto spend doing it?

I think it will show that you have time for more thanwhat you convey if you do not schedule and visualizehow much you really have quoted for, otherwise it iseasy to just let the time pass. Project leaders today tendto block one person and say, I need this person full time,but really you do not need that person working full timeyou only need that person a couple of hours. With atool like this it will be easier to clarify how many hoursis actually needed project leaders can feel more securethat they will get a resource those hours needed.

Do you think the people working inprojects will have to do less switch-ing between their assigned tasks?

I think it is hard to say, it is up to the resource own-ers and the need for resources. It will be a more clearplanning because it will not be as much chasing after re-sources. Resources do not have to promise to do thingsfor project leaders as it is now, it will have to go throughthe resource owner which plans and assigns hours. Itwill be less switching back and forth and it will be moreclear what you are supposed to do. It is also a learningprocess for the project leaders, because if you request8 hours June 21 then you cannot count on getting thesame resource as last time, you will need to be a littlemore flexible than that if you want the same resource.

Do you think the people workingin projects will get more time be-tween projects or tasks to reflect overthe work that was done in order toimprove to the next similar task orproject?

This system enables the possibility to extract the actualjob cost of projects which in turn allows for assessmentsand that is a prerequisite for any reflection. In whichextent time for reflection are given is then dependent onthe workload of each individual, but also on the timethat is allocated for systematic assessment and reflec-tion.

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5.3. Evaluation

Do you think this tool will reduce theamount of stress people experience?

Absolutely, given the tool does not create a lot of it-stress. But a fully functional tool would definitely re-duce the amount of stress. Having to promise two peo-ple the same thing is not good or having to worry aboutif resources exists or not. Project leaders today can bevery worried that resources might not exist when theyneed them.

Do you think resource owners willfeel more in control over their re-sources than before?

Yes I believe so. It will clarify for the resource ownerhow much work they have so it can be divided amongresources.

Do you think project leaders will feelmore confident that a resource theyhave been assigned will do their as-signed task when promised when us-ing this tool instead of just agreeingverbally with the resource owner?

I think project leaders will feel more confident becausethey do not own any resources today but it is the re-source owner that owns the resources so it is that personthe resources listens to, you listen to your manager firsthand.

Do you think it will be easier for thepeople working in projects to knowhow many hours they are supposedto spend on an assigned task andwhat they are supposed to do?

I think so, it will be an openness towards everyone andthe more we can describe and specify these things thefaster it will go. This also forces project leaders to doboth a time plan and a resource plan with how many re-sources are needed and when and this is a good thing todo in the beginning. You also get a good follow up be-cause you enter the amount of hours you have used. Soif you thought it would take four hours and it took twoor eight you can take that with you to the next project.

What would make a tool like this oneeven better and easier to use?

This is a good base and I think this is good enough tostart using and then we will receive input from the usersbefore we make another version. It is good not to makeit too advanced in the beginning because it is easy togo too far in one direction. Of course there can be alot of improvements made for standard inputs and suchthings and to make it easier to make certain changes inassignments.

What disadvantages do you see withusing a tool like this?

One disadvantage is that people who has a good dia-logue today regarding resources, and with that I meanthat they can easily get resources, will not have the samebenefit because everyone will be treated equal. And thatcan be experienced as frustrating for those people but itis not really a disadvantage. It might get a little less flex-ible because today you make changes pretty quick and ifthere are a lot of planned activities ahead you will haveto make changes. But it will also make it more obvi-ous what gets deprioritized when doing such changes.Maybe as a resource owner you could plan one houreach day for flextime that is used to finish small jobs.

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5.3. Evaluation

what problems do you think couldcome from using a tool like this forresource planning?

There is a responsibility both on the project leaders tohave good forward planning but also on the resourceowners to plan so that you have a continuity in whichpeople works on which projects. There may also be thecase where some resources are more popular than oth-ers and then it is up to the resource owners to handlethose situations when they occur so that some peopledo not feel like they always gets the assignments thatno one else wants etc.

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6 Discussion and Analysis

In this chapter all the three phases in this thesis will be discussed, analysed and criticised.

6.1 Results

Pre-study

As presented in the theory chapter project overload can be caused by a number of factors.In this study some of them were chosen for evaluation since they felt more relevant to thisparticular case than the others. These factors were routines, formalization, time resources,psychological stress reactions and opportunities for recuperation. An additional factor werealso introduced called overview. One of the big issues identified in the beginning of thisstudy was that project leaders were unable to easily get an overview of what was going on inthe projects, this issue had an impact on resources and resource owners as well. Because ofthis some statements in the survey were constructed in order to evaluate this factor as well.

The survey was sent out to all the resources and resource owners that are normally in-volved in NPI projects. However, the amount of time different people spend in these projectsmight differ which can impact the results of the survey. There were also people who did nottake the survey at all which could have affected the results, even though the majority of themfelt that they were so rarely involved in projects of this kind and that it was better they nottake the survey at all. Some of the people the survey was sent to quit their job during thecourse of this study and did thus not answer the survey.

The results in Table 5.3 shows that for the survey questions sent out to both resourcesand resource owners the statement with the highest percent for agreement level 3 and belowcombined were 95% and the lowest percent was 71%. This indicates that the people workingin these projects are suffering from high levels of project overload which seems to be accurateaccording to the interviews with the project leaders. However, All the factors said to affectproject overload were not taken into account in this study because they did not feel relevant.If they would have been evaluated as well they could have given a different view on theperceived amount of project overload even though they were thought to be irrelevant in thiscase.

The problems discovered in the interviews are very similar to problems in the literature,for example the project leaders describe that one of the selling points when trying to land

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6.1. Results

new contracts with customers is short deadlines and short project makespans, the amount ofresources available is not taken into account when deciding these deadlines which is a clearsign of over commitment [17, 5]. The project leaders also said that work was very stressfulwhich is one of the consequences from high levels of project overload that was supported inthe study by Zika-Viktorsson et al. [24].

Evaluation

The evaluation was done in two steps. First, a workshop was held with four resource ownersand four project leaders. In this workshop they tested the tool with faked projects and whenthey were done they were given a questionnaire to answer with various questions about thetool. The results from this evaluation questionnaire can be found in Table 5.6. This shows thatit is clear that the attendees believes a system like this will improve the process for planningresources. There are a lot of positive effects mentioned such as better and clearer planning,more obvious agreements between resource owner and project leader and easier to followprogress for projects. However, as also mentioned it is still in an early development stage andthere are a lot of improvements to be made. Specifically one issue was critical to fix beforethe tool could be used. This issue was that it had to be possible to request a total amount ofhours between two dates instead of requesting hours per day and that it had to be possible forresource owners to assign more than one resource to the same activity and to assign differentamount of hours each day. It is also worth mentioning that the company currently have nosophisticated tool to help with resource planning, which means they do not have anything tocompare this tool to. This does not necessarily mean that the new tool is bad, but it might bethe case that another tool exists that works much better than the developed one and solvesthe same problems. However, in this study no such tool was found.

The factors that this new tool was believed to affect was routines, formalization, timeresources and opportunities for recuperation. These factors have been proven to affect theperceived amount of psychological stress reactions in the study by Zika-Viktorsson et al. [24].It was also believed that this new tool would affect an additional factor introduced in thisthesis called overview. Overview relates to the amount of control resource owners feel overtheir resources or the degree of information resources or project leader can acquire about theirtasks and projects. To evaluate if these factors actually would be affected by this new tool asecond workshop was held together with an interview with the head of the NPI-departmentand the local manager which is described more detailed in Chapter 4.3.

Routines and formalization

Routines and formalization reflected the routines and processes used in projects in order toachieve a standardized way of working. Since there was no formal process to follow forproject leaders and resource owners this was done differently by everyone. The most com-mon way was a verbal agreement between the resource owner and the project leader that acertain resource should be working with a certain task. The results from the pre-study showsthat it was a somewhat even distribution between the three middle options for the statementsreflecting these factors. This makes it hard to say if people thought the current routines andprocesses were bad or good, but it proves that there were very few that fully agreed that theywere necessary and easy to follow. In the evaluation interview the following questions wereasked to evaluate these two factors:

1. In which way do you think this tool will improve or worsen the resource planningprocess?

2. In which way do you think this tool will affect the people working in projects that nowwill get their assigned tasks in a schedule so that they can always see what they aresupposed to do and how many hours to spend doing it?

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6.1. Results

The answers indicates that by using this tool a more standardized way of planning andrequesting resources will be introduced and they believe that this will in turn clarify whereresources are needed and that it will keep resources from getting blocked for more hours thanis actually needed. This shows that by using this tool it will reduce the amount of stress thisfactor generates.

Time resources

Time resources reflected the amount of time that a person is given to perform a task. Theresults from the pre-study shows that a majority of the people taking the survey disagreedwith the statement reflecting this factor which shows that this was clearly an issue. In theevaluation interview the following question were asked to evaluate this factor:

1. Do you think the people working in projects will have to do less switching betweentheir assigned tasks?

The answer indicates that the new tool will reduce the amount of switching in the sensethat project leaders are forced to make more elaborate resource plans for their projects andthus it might not be necessary to do as much rescheduling. However, it is hard to eliminatethis issue completely, there will always be the need for rescheduling and reprioritizing sincethings that are unpredictable will happen such as people getting sick. Also, in some cases itmight not be possible to plan so far ahead, such as with projects that has a duration longerthan a year.

Opportunities for recuperation

This factor reflects the amount of time given between projects ti reflect over the work done inorder to improve to the next project. The results from the pre-study shows that the majorityof the people disagreed or totally disagreed with the statement related to this factor whichshows that this is a major issue today. In order to evaluate if this factor would be affected bythe new tool the following question were asked in the evaluation interview:

1. Do you think the people working in projects will get more time between projects ortasks to reflect over the work that was done in order to improve to the next similar taskor project?

The answer indicates that it is really up to the resource owner to allocate time for suchactivities and whether or not this is possible is dependent on the workload of each individual.However, a tool like this might help to plan and schedule such reflection activities but it isnot clear that this will affect the impact this factor has on stress.

Overview

This was the factor introduced in this study and reflects the amount of control resource own-ers feel over their resources or the degree of information resources or project leader can ac-quire about their tasks and projects. The results from the pre-study shows that it was a some-what even distribution between the three middle options for the statements reflecting thisfactor which makes it hard to draw any conclusion from this other than that there was onlya fraction that totally agreed this was not an issue. In the evaluation interview the followingquestion were asked to evaluate this factor:

1. Do you think resource owners will feel more in control over their resources than before?

2. Do you think project leaders will feel more confident that a resource they have beenassigned will do their assigned task when promised when using this tool instead of justagreeing verbally with the resource owner?

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6.2. Method

3. Do you think it will be easier for the people working in projects to know how manyhours they are supposed to spend on an assigned task and what they are supposed todo?

The answers indicate strongly that the new tool is believed to affect this factor positivelywhich in turn shows that by using this tool it will reduce the amount of stress this factorgenerates.

Stress

The factors discussed so far has been proven to affect the amount of perceived stress in someway except for the factor overview that was introduced in this study. There was also a ques-tion in the evaluation interview about stress:

1. Do you think this tool will reduce the amount of stress people experience?

The answer indicates that it is believed this tool will reduce the amount of stress in general.However, a tool that is poorly designed and hard to use can also generate stress among thepeople using it which is one of the downsides of using a tool like this instead of a verbalprocess.

6.2 Method

This study was divided into three phases, a pre-study phase, an implementation phase andan evaluation phase. In the study phase interviews were carried out with all of the projectleaders in order to get an understanding of the problems with the current resource planningat the company. To get a broader view of the issues and to get observations from different per-spectives interviews could have been conducted with resource owners and some resourcesas well, which was not done in this case. This would have given the author a more completeview of the current situation than was gained by only interviewing project leade