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Bucket Planning
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RPC UK Limited
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P a g e 1 o f 4
Dave’s Tips 25: Future Period Bucket Planning
(Primavera P6.x, P6 v7, P6 Rel 8.x)
INTRODUCTION
Future Period Bucket Planning allows a Planner/Scheduler to enter a custom distribution, or
spread, per resource or role assignment, to model resource requirements in a way that truly
reflects how the work is planned and performed. When staffing a project, most people staff their
project by the day, week or month. Future Period Bucket Planning allows a resource assignment
to start and stop anytime over the duration of the activity. Future Period Bucket Planning also
allows changes to be made to resource assignments to ensure that resources are not over- or
under-allocated for a specific time period.
HOW
When you specify an activity's total budgeted or planned units, the budgeted or planned units for
an assignment to that activity are spread evenly across the duration of the activity, in the
timescale increment you choose.
In this example the Plumber has been assigned to work 8 hours per day for 10 days.
Fig 1.0
Note the “Curve” column is empty (see Fig 1.0).
However, your projects may contain activities for which you know work will be performed
sporadically and at varying levels of effort. For these activities, you can do either of the following
to more accurately capture when you plan for work to be performed on an activity:
• Assign a curve to a resource or role assignment.
• Manually enter future period assignment values (bucket planning)
While assigning a resource curve to the resource/role assignment will yield more accurate results
than spreading units evenly across the duration of an activity, the work you plan to perform per
period on an activity may not be fully reflected by the curve. As a result, performance against the
project plan cannot be accurately measured.
RPC UK Limited
1 The Courtyard,
Hawksworth Est., Thorpe Lane,
Guiseley, Leeds, LS20 8LG
t.
f.
e.
w.
01943 222 001
0870 432 8424
www.rpc.uk.com
P a g e 2 o f 4
For example, the “Bell Shaped Curve” has been assigned to this resource and this is reflected in
the spreading of the units (See Fig 1.1).
Fig 1.1
To achieve the most precise resource/role distribution plan, you can manually enter the budgeted
or planned resource/role allocation per assignment in the timescale unit you choose (days,
weeks, months, quarters, years, or financial periods). For example, assume an activity has an
original or planned duration of 10 days and budgeted or planned units of 80 hours. For this
activity, you know that the actual work will not be spread evenly across the duration of the
activity; rather, the budgeted or planned units will be spread as follows:
Fig 1.2
Note how the curve is set to “Manual” indicating the manual loading of units (See Fig 1.2).
The other feature of bucket planning is that if you change the budgeted units of the activity, the
spread will be pro-rated according to the last spread.
Fig 1.3
In the example above (Fig 1.3), not how the budgeted units has been
changed to 120 and the spread is prorated to the original allocation.
RPC UK Limited
1 The Courtyard,
Hawksworth Est., Thorpe Lane,
Guiseley, Leeds, LS20 8LG
t.
f.
e.
w.
01943 222 001
0870 432 8424
www.rpc.uk.com
P a g e 3 o f 4
By manually entering the planned resource/role distribution in future period assignment buckets,
you can create an accurate baseline plan to measure against current project progress. As the
current project schedule progresses and you apply actuals, you can track how the project is
performing against plan by comparing the project’s budgeted or planned future periods to the
current project’s actuals.
If work on an activity is not proceeding according to plan, you can manually update the remaining
units for an assignment's future periods, enabling you to measure the remaining work for an
assignment without changing the original plan. Alternatively, if you choose to re-estimate future
work based on changes to the project schedule, you can edit an assignment's future period
budgeted or planned units while the activity is in progress; if many assignment's require re-
estimation, you can establish a new baseline plan based on your changes.
TIPS
You can compare the planned future period resource distribution to actual units and costs in the
Resource Usage Profile, Resource Usage Spreadsheet, Activity Usage Profile, Activity Usage
Spreadsheet, time-distributed reports, and the Tracking window. If you plan your project work in
defined financial periods, after you store period performance, you can compare the resource
distribution you planned to the project's past period actuals. See Store Period Performance.
Activity costs, including earned value and planned value, are calculated using the planned future
period resource distribution you define for activity assignments.
Note - You must have the 'Edit Future Periods' project privilege to manually enter future period
data.
RPCuk Knowledge Zone
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We will regularly be publishing briefings on a variety of project management and planning topics
that may be of interest. In addition, we intend to offer useful tools and links to other resources
through our RPCuk Tips and Tricks Section.
RPC UK Limited
1 The Courtyard,
Hawksworth Est., Thorpe Lane,
Guiseley, Leeds, LS20 8LG
t.
f.
e.
w.
01943 222 001
0870 432 8424
www.rpc.uk.com
P a g e 4 o f 4
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