Many PMs struggle with schedule resource leveling. Most of the time, the schedule is not dynamic enough and resists leveling.
The Ask a Project PM: Resource Leveling video (14 min, 37 sec) discusses a number of best practices around resource levelling. The demo uses MS Project but the same best practices can be applied to other software packages. Some of the best practices reference an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system and portfolio management.
My take away ordered punch list:
- Use an up to date company calendar.
- Use individual calendars for each resource, based on the company calendar and on their specific availability constraints.
- Remove all constraints that are not essential. You may have set fixed start dates or other constraints for tasks that do not require them.
- Remove all dependencies that are not essential. You may have set dependencies between tasks that are not logically related. I’ve been guilty of that.
- Assign resources or resource groups to tasks.
- Set task priorities; higher priorities get scheduled first. I’ll start doing this; never knew about this.
- Set the leveling options for your software package.
- Start leveling and level periodically.
What do you think? As always questions and comments are welcome.
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