Leveling question

[Bryan]

I'm rereading my notes from a MS Project Semiar at Microsoft last year. ONe
of the notes says "DON'T LEVEL. Clear leveling doesn't work well." Can anyone
explain? If I don't level, how do I get tasks to schedule correctly?

 

[JulieS]

Hi Bryan,

I'm afraid I disagree with the idea of "Don't Level". The difficulty most
folks seem to have with Resource Leveling is they expect leveling to act as
either
1) a resource optimization tool (re-assign resources so they are always used
at their maximum units) or
2) they complain it "messes up their project file" by changing dates.

If you accept what resource leveling can do and what it can't do, I think it
works fine.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[Bryan]

Thanks Julie:

Isn't it crazy that people think Project messes up their dates. One of the
things I hate is picking up a project plan from someone who hard codes all
the dates. Happens all the time.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Clear leveling works perfectly!!

 

[JulieS]

Hi Bryan,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

I agree, all too frequently users attempt to use Project as an Excel
spreadsheet . They start by typing in all the dates and begin to engage in
a battle of wills with the software that they lose most all of the time. ;-)

Julie

 

[Trevor Rabey]

Well, it doesn't have to do much to work, just set levelling delay to zero.
Even MS can do that.

 

[davegb]

Hi Bryan,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

I agree, all too frequently users attempt to use Project as an Excel
spreadsheet . They start by typing in all the dates and begin to engage in
a battle of wills with the software that they lose most all of the time. ;-)

Julie

I agree with all the statements above. In addition, I think one of the
problems with using Leveling is a lack of understanding of Schedule
Continuity. My experience is that without continuity, Leveling does
some seemingly very strange things. Once you know that the project is
improperly linked, those "strange things" make perfect sense.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

In addition to leveling I have used the Priority Leveling feature with success.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Agree, that is why I'm so sure it works perfectly )

 

[Gilgamesh]

Hi Bryan,

I'm afraid I disagree with the idea of "Don't Level". The difficulty most
folks seem to have with Resource Leveling is they expect leveling to act
as either
1) a resource optimization tool (re-assign resources so they are always
used at their maximum units) or
2) they complain it "messes up their project file" by changing dates.

If you accept what resource leveling can do and what it can't do, I think
it works fine.

I agree with Julie.
Resource Levelling may be all that's needed for simpler projects.
For others it is a great starting point but not the final result (its not
perfect after all).
As a little exercise take the following exercise.
You have 10 people who each need to proof read the same 10 independent
documents. 1 person can proofread a document on 0.5 days and obviously they
can't share the documents when proofreading (only 1 copy of each is
available).
What is the optimal amount of time for completion of proofing?
If you think about it - With everyone starting with a different document and
simply swapping when finished the proofing will be finished in precisely 5
days. Yet the resource levelling result is somewhat different. I believe
this is the difference that Julie's point 1 addresses.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi All,

Oh boy.
I knew using Project when you need simultaneous work by several resoruces on
one task is a problem, because you can't introduc etheir time off in the
clendar - Project will not keep the work simultaneous.

But I always recommended using leveling with the option "split assignments"
OFF - thought it would always do a decent job.

This little test however proves that even this is useless.
I really don't know what to say when people ask to plan simultaneoius work
bu-y several resources.
I'm not happy.

 

[KimC]

I leveled only one resource and then tried to "undo" it and the Clear
Leveling button was not available. Any idea why?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

For a reason not known to the mere mortals, when in a resource view the
Clear Leveling button is not available.
Switch to any task view and clear leveling.

Hope this helps,

 

[a_lo928]

For some reason - although I have automatic leveling on, nothing is happening
when allocating resources -- the leveling delay is still coming out as zero
--- any suggestions of where I might have gone wrong -- am I not properly
linking resources or something?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

First, as long as there are no overallocations, leveling doesn't do
anythong.
Second, if you pin down tasks (by putting an actual start date or some
actual work or by setting a must start on or Must finish on constraint...)
they won't be leveled either.
Hope this helps,

 

[Patrick]

Why does an available resource not get fully utilized in a shared task? It
seem to depend on the other resources' availabilty and thereby delayed the
completion of the task. Meaning 3 resources are assigned to work on a 30-day
task at the beginnning (from work effort, it should only take 10 days) but
when 2 of the resources are given another task (for 10 days) during this
30-day period, the 30-day task is split; makes sense. However the 3rd
resource is still available to work but when you do the levelling, the 3rd
resource is not doing any work during this 10-day break. Why is that? I
would think this resource would continue working throughout. Can I change
the levelling parameters so that non-affecting resource continues working?

 

[JulieS]

Hello Patrick,

When you level, check the option "Leveling can adjust individual
assignments on a task. This will allow the resource who is not
overallocated to work on the task as scheduled, the other two
resource's work will be delayed.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project