Resource Leveling

[Matt Gault]

In a resource pool I have created, I have adjusted the MAX Units field for
specific workers (resource) to 80%. When these resources are individually
applied to specific tasks in a project sharer file, MS Project shows an over
allocation for each resource on each day because the standard calendar is set
up for 8 hour workdays. To alleviate this over allocations across the whole
project, I would like to use Level Resources. My hope was to have MS Project
extend the task duration out to accommodate each resource working just 80% of
their Max Units. (Example: If a task duration is 5 days and I assign a
resource at 80% max units, the duration would be extended by 1 day after
leveling)

However, Project will NOT do this. When I try and Level Resources, I get an
error message telling me I need to increase each resources max units or
assign more resources. So I am stuck with taking care of the many over
allocations manually.

Is there any other way to have MS Project do this automatically?? Any advice
or help would be appreciated.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Select all tasks
Show the Assign Resources input Box
Click a resoruce that works @80%
Click Replace
Replace by... Resource at 80%

HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Jack Dahlgren MVP]

When leveling, project does not adjust percentage allocation. It just moves
tasks around and may split them if you have that option set.
Sorry, but there is no way to do this automatically with the built-in
features of project.

-Jack Dahlgren
http://zo-d.com/blog

 

[Steve House]

For the initial resource assignment Project assumes you had in mind the
assignment units you were going to use when you came up with the duration
estimate in the first place. In other words, if you have the duration at 5
days then assign the resource at 80%, Project assumes you knew you were
going to assign him at 80% when you input the 5 days to begin with and so
the duration doesn't adjust. To get it to automatically extend the
duration, you'll need to assign him at 100% and then EDIT the assignment
down to 80%.

You are not getting the overallocation because the calendar is set for 8
hour workdays, you are getting it because the total of the resource's
assignments at some given instant exceeds the maximum you've allowed, 80% in
this case. Unless he's on one single task at an assignment >80%, this is
caused by your booking him to be in two places at once. If he's assigned to
1 days task X on Monday at 80% and also 1 day task Y on Monday at 80%, he's
expected to be on both at once, a physical impossibility. If each task has
a duration of 1 day and starts at 8am, at an assignment level of 80% on each
you're expecting him somehow to magically be able to accomplish a total of
~13 man-hours of work during only 8 hours of elapsed time. Obviously that's
impossible. Leveling will fix this problem by moving one of the tasks until
it's clear of the other - one task moving to Tuesday, for example.

It sounds like your situation is caused by your assigning your resources at
100% when you've set the maximum availability at 80%. Leveling does not
change the assignment percentages or cause duration to be recalculated - ALL
it does is delay work en masse, ie an 8-hour duration task on Monday
pre-leveling gets moved to become an 8-hour duration task on Tuesday
post-leveling. To get the duration to change, you need to identify which
tasks are the offending tasks and manually edit the assignment percentage
each to 80% or less.

Why are you using a max of 80% in the first place? Are you trying to say
that the resources only work a 6.5 hour day (sort of reading between the
lines in your post)? If that's the case, that's NOT what 80% maximum
availability means. If the applicable calendar says the workday is 8 hours
and you say the resource is available for a maximum of 80%, he is still
working the FULL 8-hour day on your tasks HOWEVER because of whatever
distractions he has that drain part of his energy, he is only able to
achieve 6.4 man-hours (8 hours * .80) worth of full-time equivalent work.
With an 8-hour workday, an 80% task doesn't start at 8 and end at 3, it
starts at 8 and ends at 5 ... but if COULD have ended at 3 if you'd been
able to clear all the other stuff off of the resource's plate. If your
resources are in fact only working 6 hours per day, create a calendar whose
workday is 6 hours and assign them at 100% of it.

 

[Matt Gault]

Steve thanks for the detailed explanation.

To answer your question about why I am using a max of 80% in the first place:

I work in a functional organization and have to share resources across the
company. Everyone works a full 8 hour shift, however, there are distractions,
emergencies, etc. that come up during a normal work week that will consume N
number of hours of a persons time per week. I don’t have enough data to fully
calculate the exact time each resource will have available for tasks on
projects at this time. It’s actually probably closer to 60% in some cases,
but 80% seems to be a good starting point for now until I can collect more
data and adjust accordingly.

I could adjust the resources working days on their calendar to show 4
working days, but that can interfere with non working days (ie Holidays,
Vacation, etc). I also considered adjusting the available work time; however
that’s basically what the 80% does. So really there is no automatic way to do
this.

The problem I am left with is, when I sit down with the team and complete a
WBS, their estimates for duration of tasks are based on full eight hour days.
So, unless you may have another suggestion, for now I suppose can either go
back and add 20% to each duration and go from there or just assign each
person to 80% in each individual task. <shrug>

 

[Prasad]

In a resource pool I have created, I have adjusted the MAX Units field for
specific workers (resource) to 80%. When these resources are individually
applied to specific tasks in a project sharer file, MS Project shows an over
allocation for each resource on each day because the standard calendar isset
up for 8 hour workdays. ........

Is there any other way to have MS Project do this automatically?? Any advice
or help would be appreciated.

Several workers may perform the same task at different rates based on
their skill levels. It is possible that Matt specifies 80% as Max
units for a resource that has only 80% efficiency, that is, the
resource needs 25% extra time to finish the task due to low skill
level. This issue can be addressed by increasing the task duration by
25% whenever such a resource is assigned.

Prasad
www.optisol.biz

 

[Steve House]

I tend to look at it this way. When you come up with a duration estimate,
it's based on experience. Last year we had to build 100 widgets and it took
Joe 10 days to do it. We really don't know how many of those hours were
REALLY building widgets and how many we doing things like email, putting out
fires, etc. All we really know is that Joe, working the way Joe's normal
workday usually goes, took 10 days to build those widgets. If this year we
find we're also going to need to build 100 widgets in this project, it too
will probably take a resource like Joe 10 days to complete. We really don't
need to micromanage the time in order to account for every widget and every
distraction - saying it's probably going to be 10 days again is close enough
for project planning purposes. We can just ignore the other stuff Joe does
and say he's available 100% and normally we'd assign him at 100%. Back when
I took analytic chemistry the professor warned about the pitfalls of what he
called "empty precision" and I think the argument applies equally well here.
Just because you can carry a division by 3 out to an infinity of decimal
places, if the measuring device you're using is only accurate to 2 decimal
places it's pointless to carry a calculation where you divide by 3 out
beyond 1.33. Likewise, just because we can estimate Joe's availability to 2
decimal places (ie, 80% versus 85%), if the historical data we have to base
our duration estimates on doesn't detail that during the 10 days he spent on
the widgets he really spent 17.5 hours on this and 22.25 hours on that and
3.17 hours on that other thing, it's pointless to try to detail his day to
that degree now. We know that if he could wipe his slate clean the widgets
would be done sooner than 10 days but since we can't completely clear the
decks, the real time to build 100 widgets is irrelevant and we really don't
need to care what it COULD get done in. All we care about is how long it
will take to get it done in the real world he has to work in.

 

[Prasad]

When some workers take 25% more time than the normal duration, my
common sense says that we should not always ignore such fact. The
differences among the times taken by workers with "different skill
levels" for the same task may "sometimes" require due consideration.

Prasad

 

[JulieS]

Pardon me for bumping in. If I understand correctly, your durations
were based upon estimates from resources based upon working an eight
hour day. So, if Sue said "4 days" duration, she really meant it was 32
hours of work. (4day * 8 hours per day). What you would like to do is
have project recalculate the durations of task based upon a resource
working only 6.4 hours per day. You can copy the existing duration and
paste into the Work field. If you have assigned the resources at 80%
assignment units, Project will recalculate the duration based upon the
new work value (32 hours in the example above).

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

 

[Steve House]

Excetly - that's why I tell my students to try to have in mind their likely
resource assignments when they make their duration estimates.