50 % Project Allocation

I will start this blog with one anecdote.

About 5 years back, I was working as a Test team member in one of my project. One fine day, my manager committed to another team that I would also be a part of their Testing activities. When I asked how I will handle these two Testing activities, I got the answer that I am 50% allocated to my current project and 50% to another one. At that time, since I was new in the Software Industry, I became puzzled and ironically my manager was not able to plan for me for this situation.

What I did at that time is that I increased my working hours from 10 hours per day to 16 hours per day so that I would be able to meet the deadlines set by my manager for both the projects. I continued with this 16 hours schedule for more than 4 months (including weekends). Then somehow I managed and completed the Testing part for both the teams. As a reward for this excellent effort, I got the “Best performer” award for that year by my manager.

But I am not saying that this is the only execution path for any resource if your manager assigned you to two different projects each with 50% allocation. This might be a path but not feasible for everyone. Or in fact not recommended by me now.

Sometimes, that target resource, which has been assigned 50% each in two different projects, does not respond properly. Assuming that a resource “XYZ” has been assigned to two different project – Project A and Project B, each with 50% allocation. Now if the Project A reporting manager wants some updates about the progress for his project, the answer would be “I was busy with Project B work”. And if the Project B reporting manager wants some updates about the progress for his project, the answer would be “I was busy with Project A work”. And in reality, the resource is doing nothing.

Sometimes, this allocation works for only one project. The 50% allocated resource prioritizes the tasks and activities to the primary project in which the work will be noticed and hence personal progress can be done. In this type of scenario, the other project will suffer a lot. Because that project has a resource which is not working at all. Or rather not working properly at all.

I would suggest not executing this 50% allocation process as this is a total failure in practical software cycle. And if, by any chance, you have to allocate your resource by this way, follow the below mentioned practices:

• Better not to allocate 50% on daily basis. It should be on weekly basis.
• Keep track of all the activities performed by him/her for both the projects.
• Schedule a daily status report for each project with respective Team manager.
• Make a detailed and comprehensive plan for both the projects.
• Both the project managers should be in sink on what are the activities for both the projects that resource is doing.
• Don’t hard press the resource for performing both the activities.
• If 50% allocation doesn’t give a positive output, replace the resource with another one and try to work out with new resource.
• If another resource also doesn’t work, better to work on the planning and managing a 50% resource allocation roadmap.

-- Sanat Sharma

(Quality Assurance and Testing Expert)