Resource Leveling

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ResourceLeveling

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Agenda Importance of the Individual Project Plan Importance of Resolving Resource

Over-Allocations in All Project Plans Identifying Resource Over-Allocations Manual (On-demand) Leveling of Projects Manual (On-demand) Leveling of Resources Leveling Resources Across a Portfolio of

Projects

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Importance of the Individual Project Plan

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The Building Blocks of EPM The individual Project Plan is the building

block from which the Enterprise Project Management environment is constructed.

The discipline of building sound Project Plans is critical to the success of EPM.

Resolving resource over-allocations is a critical part of the discipline of building sound Project Plans.

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Basic Process for Creating a Project Plan

ProjectSetup

EnterTask

Details

EnterDurationsAgainstTasks

Outline thePlan

Link Tasks(CreateDepend-encies)

Check andadjust

DefineResource

Pool

AssignResources to

Tasks

ResolveResource

Over-Allocations

Baseline thePlan

Publish thePlan

to the Server

Manage;Track

Progress

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Importance of Resolving Resource

Over-Allocationsin all Project Plans

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Over-Allocation of Resources Over-Allocation of Resources exists when—

Work [Scheduled] > Available Hours* Usually caused by scheduling multiple

assignments for a resource during a single time period (Note: EPM significantly intensifies this problem)

Project considers the Resource Calendar—but not other assignments—when scheduling new assignments

*Available hours = Working Hours in Time Period X Resource Units

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Impact of Over-Allocated Resources If over-allocated resources exist in a schedule,

the entire project schedule is untrustworthy and not suitable for use in managing the project.

If individual project plans are untrustworthy, all portfolio analysis becomes untrustworthy

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Identifying Resource Over-Allocations

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Approaches to Leveling Project does the leveling

Automatic leveling Manual (on demand) leveling

Entire project Selected resources

Project Manager does the leveling

Risk

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Methods of Resolving Resource Over-Allocations Delay a task Split a task Reduce a task’s

duration Change the resources

assigned to the task Assign more resources

to the task

Replace an over-allocated resource with and under-allocated resource

Remove an over-allocated resource from a task

Add overtime

ProjectUses OnlyThese Two

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Manual (On-Demand) Leveling of an Entire Project

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Manual (On-Demand) Leveling of a Single Resource

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Leveling Resources Across aPortfolio of Projects

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Recommendations About Leveling Resource over-allocations must be addressed A “Project Audit” should be conducted on

project plans that are being published to the server. The audit should include a check for over-allocated resources.

Recommend—especially to naïve clients—that Project’s Automatic Leveling and Manual (On Demand) Leveling features not be used.

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