Levelling Resources

Let me count the ways.

Levelling - Over Allocation
 A project is created and resources are
assigned.
 Any tasks that share a resource and
overlap in time will create an over
allocation.
Levelling - Over Allocation
 This over allocation is seen in
MSProject as red text on the resource
sheet and the resource usage view.
 Over allocation means that you have
two carpenters but have assigned
three.
Levelling - Over Allocation
 You can assign another carpenter but
you only have two so MSProject
highlights this.
 Is this a problem?
 Yes, if it’s on the critical path
 This means that the carpenters will
have to work 12 hour days for the
duration of the task.
Levelling - Over Allocation
 You can fix the problem in several
ways:
 Hire another carpenter.
 Schedule more time for the task.
 Get help from a subcontractor.
 If you schedule more time for a
critical task you will extend the
project.
Levelling - Over Allocation
 There are many ways in which you
can level the workloads by hand
 The methods are listed in order of
perceived effectiveness.
 The first ones are most effective in
our view.
Manual Levelling
 Reassign the best resources to
the critical tasks first and only to
critical tasks.
 You can take non-critical tasks away
from the best resources and reduce their
workloads in that way.
 Matching people to the tasks so that the
best person does the task also results in
time gained and improves time and
workloads at the same time.
Manual Levelling
 Reassign tasks from critical resources
to noncritical resources.
 Critical resources force critical tasks to be
delayed in order to keep their workloads sane.
 Critical resources extend the project duration
and if you take some of their tasks away, you
are levelling their workloads and perhaps
shorten the project duration at the same time.
 You can reassign quickly in the Resource Usage
view. Simply drag assignments (without ID
number, italic text) from one resource to
another.
Manual Levelling
 Take the critical resource off a task.
 Sometimes you can do this when more than one
person is working on the task, or as soon as you
find a substitute resource.
 Remember critical doesn’t mean the resource is
an important resource on the task; it just
means the resource is driving the task.
 Sometimes it’s possible to simply remove the
critical resource to bring their workload down.
 Some critical resources simply have a tendency
to pull too much work towards them.
Manual Levelling
 Hire extra resources.
 If you hire extra resources, you can
reassign the tasks from your critical
resources to the new resources. This
works well if the new resources have
skills similar to or better than your
existing resources.
Manual Levelling
 Contract work out to
subcontractors.
 One definition of a subcontractor is
someone who solves your workload
problems in exchange for money.
Manual Levelling
Negotiate more resources from
subcontractors.
 If you can get more resources from
subcontractors, the workload of
existing resources can be reduced.
Manual Levelling
Fine-tune the number of units
assigned to the tasks involved in
the over- allocation.
 For example, you could keep two tasks
scheduled in parallel if you decrease
the involvement of the resource to
50%, but make sure you keep the
resources working with IOO°/o focus on
a critical task.
Manual Levelling
Split long tasks into many shorter
ones and reassign the short tasks to
noncritical resources.
 Splitting tasks increases the number of
scheduling possibilities dramatically.
Manual Levelling
Delay vacations until after the
deadline.
 This is where you trade-off against
resources and will need a lot of goodwill
from your resources.
 Be careful to not put unreasonable
demands on your resources, because
they will either burn out or leave.
Manual Levelling
Work during the weekend.
 If an over-allocation occurs on a Friday,
you can easily solve such a situation by
asking the resource to work some hours
over the weekend.
 Again you are trading off against the
resource dimension.