How to do Resource Leveling

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Resource Leveling

In the Guide To The Project Management Body of Knowledge, Resource Leveling is a technique in which task start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints, with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply.

This is quick and easy to do in Microsoft Project.

Adjusting start and finish dates while the project is in execution is best to be avoided.

It is easy to avoid by using the available Portfolio Planning and capacity management tools.

However we all know…. Stuff happens.

In this video we will look 3 ways to quickly level a project schedule to accommodate unavoidable resource over allocations.

We use Microsoft Project Online to quickly view schedules and resource capacity.

We do deep scheduling work in Microsoft Project Professional and publish the changes to the Web App.

Here is a project with some over allocated resources. If we know this project completion date is not critical, we can quickly and easily adjust task start and finish dates to work around the schedules of the named resources.

There are 3 ways you can level your projects in Microsoft Project

The first way is to simply level all the project resources.

Note this has pushed the project end date from May 20 to December 3. Not ideal.

We can dive in a little deeper and level selected resources.

We can see from this process that this Resource is what is delaying the project completion until December, and the other two resources are only busy until July.

We might be better off to simply replace the most over allocated resource with one who has more availability. We will look at how to do that in another video.

We can also level tasks.

Select a group of tasks to level and click ‘Level Selection’

This pushes the project completion into October.

In the next video we will look at how to swap over allocated resources so we can finish the project in a shorter duration.

In summary, Resource management and capacity planning are integral to the efficient functioning of organizations and the project management offices.
Microsoft Project Online and Project Professional provide us with an excellent set of tools to effectively select and plan projects based on available resources,

Alert us in advance when proposed projects will require additional resources for completion,

And then manage and optimize the available resource during project execution.

Western Principles can help with your PPM Solution!

Give us a call today!

1.800.587.4155

info@westernprinciples.com

https://www.westernprinciples.com/

Видео How to do Resource Leveling канала Project Management Tips by North Highland