Leveling Resource in Linked Project

[Tyler M]

I have a "Master Schedule" that is made up from linked files that include
schedules for individual projects. While in the "Master Schedule" I am trying
to level the resources so no one is over allocated. When I try to level it is
not working and states that one of my projects (lets say Project #3) is
linked to another task that cannot move. I am not sure why this error message
is coming up. I don't have it linked to anything else and all my seperate
projects have predecessors so that all tasks are dependant on eachother. I am
a newbie to Project and quite frankly not impressed with the level of
difficulty. Now I am sure for the everyday user this is way easy to work
with, but I have maybe a total of 100 hours in this software (I consider
myself very green with this because I hear lots of good things about Project,
I just have no training nor have I figured out a lot of it). Anyways, that is
a little background and my situation that I am currently trying to handle.
Let me know if you require more information. Thank you for your time.

 

[Tyler M]

By the way I am using MS Project 2007

 

[Rod Gill]

Firstly, let's explore what a computer can do to level resources. Firstly
the computer (in a typical schedule) does not know who has what skills, or
even if two people with the same skills can swap tasks. It does not know who
will resign if they ever have to do that "!@#@&*!*#" job again! It does not
know who has the hours available from other projects (unless you have a
resource pool with updated calendars and all other projects accurately
scheduled). It doesn't know if a task can safely or productively be
interrupted or put on hold, nor many other options.

To enter and maintain this level of detailed information would take far
longer than leveling manually!

Project can attempt to delay tasks, delay incomplete work but it can't
adjust units or swap resources (not enough info to do this).

Finally, if someone leveled my project for me and change a load of things, I
would justifiably be very annoyed and immediately remove all leveling
changes in my schedule.

Leveling requires resource management processes, senior management input on
project priorities and and a clear knowledge of resource skills and
aptitudes.

The only time I use resource leveling is to level low priority tasks so they
fit into gaps in resource usage. My critical path tasks I always level
manually.

So leveling is not simple, using any tool. How far does this take you?!

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project - http://www.project-systems.co.nz

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see: http://www.projectvbabook.com

By the way I am using MS Project 2007
--
Thank you,

Tyler M




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[Prasad]

Firstly, let's explore what a computer can do to level resources. Firstly
the computer (in a typical schedule) does not know who has what skills, or
even if two people with the same skills can swap tasks. .......

To enter and maintain this level of detailed information would take far longer than leveling manually! .........Leveling requires resource management processes, senior management input on project priorities and and a clear knowledge of resource skills and aptitudes.

So leveling is not simple, using any tool. How far does this take you?!

Rod,

I appreciate your posts most often but I am unable to accept your last
statement about "any tool". There are many scientific scheduling
software that perform automatic resource leveling for multi-project
scheduling in a sensible manner. Of course, they need most of the
information that you mentioned. Many organizations have such
information but project management (PM) software generally do not
store and use it. My experience does not agree with your statement,
"To enter and maintain this level of detailed information would take
far longer than leveling manually". You would not enter such
information as frequently as resource leveling. Moreover, the simple
data entry effort does not create headache as resource leveling does.
To the best of my knowledge, PM software are not designed and
developed to automatically make use of this information in scheduling
(like multi-functional machines, workers with different skill sets and
different worker preferences for a task assignment).

When resources are very limited, schedules without resource leveling
may not be practical and dependable even over short time intervals. In
fact, resource leveled scheduling helps resource management process
more effectively. Resource-leveled schedules must be updated often
like weather forecast to respond to uncertainty in the system. Multi-
project scheduling becomes laborious and time consuming if resource
leveling is to be done manually each time. Let a powerful, scientific
scheduling tool do it automatically in seconds even for thousands of
tasks across multiple simultaneous projects. Such a tool keeps the
data about all projects and resources in a single file. You can
perform extensive what-if analysis of multi-project schedules with
respect to any changes like those in project priorities, increase or
decrease in resource availability, calendar changes, rework, etc
because it can generate a sensible, resource leveled schedule in
seconds. Although some of those sophisticated scheduling tools do not
require formal training, they are not as cheap as popular PM software.
Since project management software like Project are highly popular and
very cheap, many people never look at those scientific scheduling
tools. Please look outside the world of project management software
which have poor scheduling logic.

Regards,
Prasad ( www.optisol.biz )