Resource levelling: Priority, Standard - how does it work?

[David Parker]

Using MS Project Pro 2002, create a single resource and the summary tasks
Main 1 and Main 2. Give one subtasks Sub 1a, Sub 1b and the other Sub 2a and
Sub2c. None of the tasks need to be linked since they can be completed in
any order.

Assign all the subtasks (but not summary tasks) to 100% of the single
resource. Increase priority of Main 1 to 600, leaving the other on the
default of 500. Increase duration of Sub 2a to 3 days, with 1a, 1b and 2b
all left at 1 day.

Can anyone explain why using the resource levelling settings of day-by-day,
order: "priority, standard", and the 3 checkboxes cleared, Project delays
Sub 1a in order to do Sub 2a first? Not only that, but the order of Sub 2a,
Sub 1a, Sub 1b, Sub 2b that I get has the resource (me) moving about between
2 unrelated tasks, which makes them take longer if worked on in the
suggested order.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how the standard resource levelling
works as it seems totally unpredictable, but I'd have thought "Priority,
Standard" would at least schedule the subtasks of Main 1 first since Main 1
has a higher priority. Can anyone explain this or should I stick with "ID
Only" levelling and move tasks higher in the list to give them higher
priority?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I'm willing to analyse your post in more detail but first and foremost, only
assignments are shifted, taskswithour resources are ignored, so forget
putting priorities on the "Main".
For starters, every conclusion you drew of that is unfortunately unfounded.

So, all tasks have the same priority and task 2a is now critical,n the
others having 2 days of slack: standard priority for 2a is thus higher.

After that, all tasks being oidentical, seems to me Project falls back to ID
priority.
Leveling definitely is not unpredictable!

If you want the tasks belonging to Main1 to be of higher priority, you
should tell Project; setting a priority to the main is ignored.

Hope this helps,

 

[David Parker]

Thanks, yes, that does help. I didn't realize that the subtasks didn't
inherit the priority of the summary task that they are part of.

I was forgetting about the critical path since there's only one person
working on the test project so the subtasks can only be done one at a time
anyway (so they're all critical imho), so I wasn't thinking in terms of
"suppose they were all done at the same time, any delay in sub 2a would
delay the project finish date".

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

I'm glad I could help you!