ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Markov chain approach and interactive approach of formal manpower planning, which have been applied within a major German Federal department. A minimum objective of the department is to maintain a satisfactory performance of a set of activities that is there is a certain amount of work to be done. These jobs have been classified by a catalogue and due to this classification they can be analysed as a set of project network activities. Formalizing the departmental manpower problem in the framework of the general decision problem, the chapter examines a flow of persons over time through a changing network of jobs and positions, which represents the transition function and manpower planning decisions. The factual background that is the four items of the decomposable network of jobs, the bureaucratic hierarchy, a limited view of time and an approximate objective function permit a reasonable and computable linear programming formulation.
