Roles represent personnel job titles or skills needed to execute projects. Architect, general laborer, quality assurance tester, and engineer are all examples of possible roles. You can create a standard set of roles that you then assign to labor and non-labor resources and activities for all projects in the organization. You can establish an unlimited number of roles and organize them in a hierarchy for easier management and assignment. The set of roles you assign to an activity defines the activity’s skill requirements. You can also define multiple price per unit rates and unit per time limits for each role to accurately plan future costs and allocation.
You can assign one or more roles to individual resources. When you assign roles to a resource, you also indicate their proficiency in that role and identify which role is their primary role. A primary role is the main role the resource is currently performing. The proficiency level describes the resource's skill level in that role. For example, Joe is a resource and fills the role of both software engineer and manager. He has been a software engineer for 20 years and is 1 - Master in that role; however, his primary role is manager, which he has been for 5 years and his proficiency level is 3- Skilled.
Assign roles to activities as you would resources during project schedule and cost planning. When your plans are finalized, you can replace roles with resources, based on each activity’s role and skill requirements.