Chapter 10. Fine-Tuning the Project Plan
Chapter at a Glance
✓ | Look at how resources are scheduled to work over the duration of a project. |
✓ | Edit a resource assignment to resolve a resource overallocation. |
✓ | Resolve resource overallocations automatically. |
✓ | See the project’s overall cost and finish date. |
In the previous three chapters, you have focused on details about tasks, resources, and assignments. Now, you will examine the results of your previous work on the schedule and dive deeper into resource assignments. You’ll also observe the overall project duration and cost.
Practice Files
Before you can complete the exercises in this chapter, you need to copy the book’s practice files to your computer. A complete list of practice files is provided in Using the Practice Files at the beginning of this book. For each exercise that has a practice file, simply browse to where you saved the book’s practice file folder.
Important
If you are running Project Professional, you may need to make a one-time setting change. This helps ensure that the practice files you work with in this chapter do not affect your Project Server data. For more information, see Appendix C.
Examining Resource Allocations over Time
In this section, you will focus on resource allocation—how the task assignments you’ve made affect the workloads of the work resources (people and equipment) of a project. A resource’s capacity to work in a given time period is determined by his or her Max. Units and resource calendar. The relationship between a resource’s capacity and his or her task assignments is called allocation. Each work resource is in one of three states of allocation:
Underallocated. The resource’s assignments do not fill the resource’s maximum capacity to do work. For example, a full-time resource who has only 25 hours of work assigned in a 40-hour workweek is underallocated.
Fully allocated. The resource’s assignments fill the resource’s maximum capacity. For example, a full-time resource who has 40 hours of work assigned in a 40-hour workweek is fully allocated.
Overallocated. The resource’s assignments exceed the resource’s maximum capacity for any period of time. For example, a full-time resource who has 65 hours of work assigned in a 40-hour workweek is overallocated.
These states of allocation apply to work resources. Cost and material resources do not do work; therefore, their assignments do not affect the overall duration of a project.
In Project, a resource’s capacity to work is measured in units; the maximum capacity of a given resource is called maximum units. Units are measured either as numbers (such as three units) or as a percentage (such as 300% units).
In this exercise, you look at resource allocations and focus on a resource who is overallocated.
Set Up
Start Project if it’s not already running.
You need the Advanced Plan_Start project plan located in your Chapter10 practice file folder to complete this exercise. Open the Advanced Plan_Start project plan, and then follow these steps.
On the File tab, click Save As.
The Save As dialog box appears.
In the File name box, type Advanced Plan, and then click Save.
On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, click Resource Usage.
The Resource Usage view appears.
On the Task tab, in the Editing group, click Scroll to Task.
Project scrolls the right side of the view to show some assignment details.
On the left side of the view is a table (the Usage table, by default) that shows assignments grouped per resource, the total work assigned to each resource, and each assignment’s work. This information is organized into an outline that you can expand or collapse.
The right side of the view contains assignment details (work, by default) arranged on a timescale. You can horizontally scroll the timescale to see different time periods. You can also change the tiers on the timescale to display data in units of weeks, days, hours, and so on.
Notice the name in the first row, Unassigned. This item lists any tasks to which no specific resources are assigned.
Next, you will collapse the outline in the table to see total work per resource over time.
Click the Resource Name column heading.
On the View tab, in the Data group, click Outline and then click Hide Subtasks.
Project collapses the outline (assignments per resource) in the Resource Usage view.
In the Resource Name column, click the name Carole Poland.
Resource assignments are currently hidden in the Usage table, and the resources’ total work values over time appear in the timescaled grid on the right.
Next, you will look at a work resource and her allocations.
Point to the M column heading (for Monday) for the week of April 1 at the top of the timescaled grid.
A ScreenTip appears with the date of the assignment: 4/2/12.
Such ScreenTips are handy in timescaled views, such as the Resource Usage view or the Gantt Chart view.
Currently, the timescale is set to display weeks and days. You will now change the timescale to see the work data summarized more broadly.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, in the Timescale box, click Months.
Project changes the timescaled grid to show scheduled work values per month.
Notice that the names of Carole Poland and some other resources appear in red. The red formatting means that these resources are overallocated: at one or more points in the schedule, their assigned tasks exceed their capacity to work.
Important
If you do not see any overallocated resources, verify in the Resource Leveling dialog box that Day by Day and Manual are selected (on the Resource tab, in the Level group, click the Leveling Options dialog box). If you still don’t see overallocated resources, reopen the Advance Plan_Start practice file.
As you can see in the timescaled grid, Carole Poland is overallocated in April and June. She is underallocated for the other months in which she has assignments. Notice that Carole’s June work value of 44 hours is formatted in red. Even though 44 hours within a month isn’t an overallocation for a full-time resource, at some point in June (perhaps even for just one day), Carole is scheduled to work more hours than she can accommodate.
You will focus on Carole Poland first by changing the timescale settings.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, in the Timescale box, click Days.
Project adjusts the timescale to its previous setting.
Click the plus sign next to Carole’s name in the Resource Name column.
Project expands the Resource Usage view to show Carole’s individual assignments.
Scroll the Resource Usage view horizontally to the right to see Carole’s assignments the week of April 15.
Carole’s total work that Monday, April 16, is 9 hours. This is formatted red, indicating the overallocation.
Carole has two assignments on April 16: eight hours on the Content edit task and the one-hour task Editorial staff meeting 2 (one instance of a recurring task).
These two tasks have been scheduled at times that overlap between the hours of 8 A.M. and 9 A.M. (If you want to observe this, adjust the timescale to display hours.) This is a real overallocation: Carole probably cannot complete both tasks simultaneously. However, it is a relatively minor overallocation given the scope of the project, and you don’t need to be too concerned about resolving this level of overallocation. However, there are other, more serious overallocations in the schedule that you will remedy later in this chapter.
Click the minus sign next to Carole’s name in the Resource Name column.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind when viewing resource allocation:
A quick way to navigate to resource overallocations in the Resource Usage view is to use the Next Overallocation button on the Resources tab in the Level group.
By default, the Resource Usage view displays the Usage table; however, you can display different tables. On the View tab, in the Data group, click Table and then click the table you want displayed.
By default, the Resource Usage view displays work values in the timescaled grid. However, you can display additional assignment values, such as cost and remaining availability. To do this, on the Format tab, in the Details group, click the value that you want displayed.
Instead of using the Timescale box on the View tab to change the timescale, you can click the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons on the status bar. However, this method might not produce the exact level of detail that you want.
To see allocations for each resource graphed against a timescale, you can display the Resource Graph: on the View tab, in the Resource Views group, click OtherViews and then click Resource Graph. Use the arrow keys or horizontal scroll bar to switch between resources in this view.
Project Professional users can use the Team Planner view to see assignments per resource in a simpler format. For more information about the Team Planner view, see Chapter 9.
Resolving Resource Overallocations Manually
In this section and the next, you will continue to focus on resource allocation—how the task assignments you have made affect the workloads of the work resources of the project. In this section, you will manually edit an assignment to resolve a resource overallocation. In the next section, you will automatically resolve resource overallocations.
Editing an assignment manually is just one way to resolve a resource overallocation. Other solutions include the following:
Replace the overallocated resource with another resource using the Replace button in the Assign Resources dialog box.
Reduce the value in the Units field in the Assignment Information or Assign Resources dialog box.
Assign an additional resource to the task so that both resources share the work.
Add leveling delay to an assignment manually.
If the overallocation is not too severe (such as assigning 9 hours of work in a normal 8-hour workday), you can often leave the overallocation in the project plan.
In this exercise, you will use the Resource Usage view to examine one overallocated resource’s assignments and edit the assignment to eliminate the overallocation.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, in the Timescale box, click Weeks.
At the weekly setting, you can more easily spot overallocations that may need to be addressed. Assigned work well over 40 hours per week for a full-time resource could be a serious problem.
Note that several names appear in red. These are overallocated resources.
Horizontally scroll the usage view to the right to examine the more severe overallocations per week.
You see several cases of minor overallocation, such as 41 hours per week, and some cases of overallocations where the total work is less than 40 hours per week. Note the more severe overallocations that affect Hany Morcos and Jane Dow starting the week of August 19.
These overallocations are severe enough that they merit more investigation. You’ll begin with Hany’s overallocation of 52 hours the week of August 19.
Click the plus sign next to Hany’s name in the Resource Name column.
Next, you’d like to get a better look at the tasks that are overallocating Hany this week.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, in the Timescale box, click Days.
Horizontally scroll the usage view to display the August 19 timeframe.
At the daily setting, you can see that Hany is overallocated on Monday and Tuesday, August 20 and 21.
You decide to reduce Hany’s work on both the Proof and review and the Create mockup tasks.
In the timephased grid of the Resource Usage view, select Hany’s assignment of 8 hours on Monday, August 20, on the task Proof and review.
Type 4h, and then press the Tab key.
With Hany’s 8-hour assignment on the same task for Tuesday, August 21, selected, type 4h, and then press Tab.
Select Hany’s assignment of 8 hours on Monday, August 20, on the task Create mockup.
Type 4h, and then press Tab.
With Hany’s 8-hour assignment on the same task for Tuesday, August 21, selected, type 4h, and then press Tab.
You’ve addressed her overallocation for the week by reducing her work on the two tasks. Note that by taking this action, you have reduced not just Hany’s work on these tasks, but the total work in the project plan. As a project manager, you have to use your judgment to determine the best course of action in such cases: reduce work, change resource assignments, or spread the work over a longer period of time.
Next, you will look at other resource overallocations in the new book plan that you can resolve automatically with resource leveling.
Leveling Overallocated Resources
In the previous section, you read about resource allocation, discovered what causes overallocation, and resolved an overallocation manually. Resource leveling is the process of delaying or splitting a resource’s work on a task to resolve an overallocation. The options in the Level Resources dialog box enable you to set parameters concerning how you want Project to resolve resource overallocations. Project will attempt to resolve such overallocations when you choose to level resources. Depending on the options you choose, this might involve delaying the start date of an assignment or task or splitting the work on the task.
Important
Although the effects of resource leveling on a schedule might be significant, resource leveling does not change who is assigned to tasks nor the total work or assignment unit values of those assignments.
For example, consider the following tasks, all of which have the same full-time resource assigned.
In this split view, the Resource Graph view appears below the Gantt Chart view. On day 1, the resource is overallocated at 200%. On day 2, the resource is fully allocated at 100%. On day 3, he is again overallocated at 200%. After day 3, the resource is fully allocated at 100%.
When you perform resource leveling, Project delays the start dates of the second and third tasks so that the resource is not overallocated.
Note that the finish date of the latest task has moved from day 6 to day 8. This is common with resource leveling, which often pushes out the project finish date. There was a total of eight days of work before leveling, but two of those days overlapped, causing the resource to be overallocated on those days. After leveling, all eight days of work are still there, but the resource is no longer overallocated.
Resource leveling is a powerful tool, but it accomplishes only a few basic things: it delays tasks, splits tasks, and delays resource assignments. It does this following a fairly complex set of rules and options that you specify in the Resource Leveling dialog box. (These options are explained in the following exercise.) Resource leveling is a great fine-tuning tool, but it cannot replace your good judgment about resource availability, task durations, relationships, and constraints. Resource leveling will work with all this information as it is entered into your project plan, but it might not be possible to fully resolve all resource overallocations within the time frame desired unless you change some of the basic task and resource values in the project plan.
Tip
To learn more about resource leveling, click the Help button (which looks like a question mark) in the upper-right corner of the Project window, and in the Help Search box, type Level resource assignments.
In this exercise, you level resources and view the effects on assignments and the project finish date.
On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, click Resource Sheet.
The Resource Sheet view appears. Note that a few resource names appear in red and display the Overallocated icon in the Indicators column.
On the Resource tab, in the Level group, click Leveling Options.
The Resource Leveling dialog box appears. In the next several steps, you will walk through the options in this dialog box.
Under Leveling calculations, make sure that Manual is selected.
This setting determines whether Project levels resources constantly (Automatic) or only when you tell it to (Manual). Automatic leveling occurs as soon as a resource becomes overallocated.
Tip
All settings in the Resource Leveling dialog box apply to all project plans that you work with in Project, not only to the active project plan. Using automatic leveling might sound tempting, but it will cause frequent adjustments to project plans whether you want them or not. For this reason, we recommend you keep this setting on Manual.
In the Look for overallocations on a . . . basis box, make sure that Day by Day is selected.
This setting determines the time frame in which Project will look for overallocations. If a resource is overallocated, its name will be formatted in red. If it’s overallocated at the level you choose here, Project will also show the Overallocated indicator next to its name.
Tip
On most projects, leveling in finer detail than day by day can result in unrealistically precise adjustments to assignments. If you prefer not to see overallocation indicators for day-by-day overallocations, select Week by Week in the “Look for overallocations on a . . . basis” box and then click OK. Doing so will not level resources, but it will determine when Project displays overallocation indicators next to resource names.
Make sure that the Clear leveling values before leveling check box is selected.
Sometimes you will need to level resources repeatedly to obtain the results that you want. For example, you might initially attempt to level week by week and then switch to day by day. If the “Clear leveling values before leveling” check box is selected, Project removes any existing leveling delays from all tasks and assignments before leveling. For example, if you previously leveled the project plan and then added more assignments, you might clear this check box before leveling again so that you wouldn’t lose the previous leveling results.
Under Leveling range for ‘Advanced Plan’, make sure that Level entire project is selected.
Here you choose to level either the entire project or only those assignments that fall within a date range you specify. Leveling within a date range is most useful after you have started tracking actual work and you want to level only the remaining assignments in a project.
In the Leveling order box, make sure that Standard is selected.
You control the priority that Project uses to determine which tasks it should delay to resolve a resource conflict. The ID Only option delays tasks only according to their ID numbers: numerically higher ID numbers (for example, 10) will be delayed before numerically lower ID numbers (for example, 5). You might want to use this option when your project plan has no task relationships or constraints. The Standard option delays tasks according to predecessor relationships, start dates, task constraints, slack, priority, and IDs. The Priority, Standard option looks at the task priority value before the other standard criteria. (Task priority is a numeric ranking between 0 and 1000 that indicates the task’s appropriateness for leveling. Tasks with the lowest priority are delayed or split first.)
Make sure that the Level only within available slack check box is cleared.
Tip
Remember that to clear a check box means to remove a check from the check box, and to select a check box means to put a check in it. You toggle the selection state of a check box by clicking it.
Clearing this check box allows Project to extend the project’s finish date, if necessary, to resolve resource allocations.
Selecting this check box would prevent Project from extending the project’s finish date to resolve resource overallocations. Instead, Project would use only the free slack within the existing schedule. Depending on the project, this might not be adequate to fully resolve resource overallocations.
Make sure that the Leveling can adjust individual assignments on a task check box is selected.
This allows Project to add leveling delay (or split work on assignments if “Leveling can create splits in remaining work” is also selected) independently of any other resources assigned to the same task. This might cause resources to start and finish work on a task at different times.
Make sure that the Leveling can create splits in remaining work check box is selected.
This allows Project to split work on a task (or on an assignment if “Leveling can adjust individual assignments on a task” is also selected) as a way of resolving an overallocation.
Make sure that the Level manually scheduled tasks check box is selected.
This allows Project to level a manually scheduled task just as it would an automatically scheduled task.
Important
If you are using Project Professional rather than Project Standard, the Resource Leveling and some other dialog boxes contain additional options relating to Project Server. Throughout this book we won’t use Project Server, so you can ignore these options for now. For more information about Project Server, see Appendix C.
Click Level All.
Tip
After you have set the leveling options that you want in the Resource Leveling dialog box, you can level the project plan by clicking the Level All button on the Resource tab in the Level group. You don’t need to return to the Resource Leveling dialog box unless you want to change leveling options.
Project levels the overallocated resources.
Notice that the Overallocated indicators are gone.
Note
When leveling resources with Day By Day selected, you might see the overallocation icons disappear, but some resource names may still appear in red. This means that some resources are still overallocated hour by hour (or minute by minute), but not day by day.
Next, you will look at the project plan before and after leveling by using the Leveling Gantt view.
On the View tab, in the Task Views group, click Other Views and then click More Views.
In the More Views dialog box, click Leveling Gantt, and then click Apply.
Project switches to the Leveling Gantt view.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, click Entire Project.
This view gives you a better look at some of the tasks that were affected by leveling.
Scroll the Leveling Gantt view vertically down to see task 46, the Book launch prep summary task.
These are some of the tasks that were more substantially affected by resource leveling. Notice that each task has two bars. The top bar represents the pre-leveled task. You can see a task’s pre-leveled start, finish, and duration by pointing to a light tan–colored bar. The bottom bar represents the leveled task.
Project was able to resolve the resource overallocations. For this particular project, leveling did not extend the project finish date. The latest task in the plan (task 45, Print and ship) still has some slack due to the manual duration entered on its summary task.
Checking the Project’s Cost and Finish Date
Not all project plans include cost information, but for those that do, keeping track of project costs can be as important as or more important than keeping track of the scheduled finish date. In this section, you examine both the cost and the finish date.
Two factors to consider when examining project costs are the specific types of costs you want to see and how you can best see them.
The types of costs that you might encounter over the life of a project include the following:
Baseline costs. The original planned task, resource, or assignment costs saved as part of a baseline plan.
Current (or scheduled) costs. The calculated costs of tasks, resources, and assignments in a project plan. As you make adjustments in a project plan, such as assigning or removing resources, Project recalculates current costs just as it recalculates task start and finish dates. After you start to incur actual costs (typically by tracking actual work), the current cost equals the actual cost plus the remaining cost per task, resource, or assignment. Current costs are the values you see in the fields labeled Cost or Total Cost.
Actual costs. The costs that have been incurred for tasks, resources, or assignments.
Remaining costs. The difference between the current or scheduled costs and the actual costs for tasks, resources, or assignments.
You might need to compare these costs (for example, baseline vs. actual) or examine them individually per task, resource, or assignment. Or you might need to examine cost values for summary tasks or for an entire project plan. Some common ways to view these types of costs include the following:
You can see the project’s cost values in the Project Statistics dialog box (you’ll do so later).
You can see or print formatted reports that include cash flow, budget, overbudgeted tasks or resources, and earned value (to do this, on the Project tab, in the Reports group, click Reports or Visual Reports).
You can see task-, resource-, or assignment-level cost information in usage views by displaying the Cost table (to do this, on the View tab, in the Data group, click Tables and then click Cost).
In addition to cost, the finish date is a critical (often the most critical) measure of a project plan. A project’s finish date is a function of its duration and start date. Most projects have a desired, or soft, finish date, and many projects have a “must hit,” or hard, finish date. When managing projects like these, it is essential that you know the project’s current or scheduled finish.
Tip
In the language of project management, a project’s finish date is determined by its critical path. The critical path is the series of tasks that will push out the project’s end date if the tasks are delayed. For this reason, when evaluating the duration of a project, you should focus mainly on the tasks on the critical path, called critical tasks. Remember that the word critical has nothing to do with how important these tasks are to the overall project. The word refers only to how their scheduling will affect the project’s finish date. If you need a refresher on critical path, see Chapter 7.
In this exercise, you look at the overall project costs, individual task costs, and the project’s finish date.
On the View tab, in the Task Views group, click Other Views, and then click Task Sheet.
Project switches to the Task Sheet view. Next, you will switch to the Cost table.
Tip
Wonder where Project got this project summary task name shown for task 0? Project uses the title entered in the Advanced Plan Properties dialog box (on the File tab, in the Info group) as the project summary task name. Or, if nobody has entered a distinct title property, Project uses the file name as the project summary task name. If you change the project summary task once you’ve displayed it, Project updates the Title property, and vice versa.
On the View tab, in the Data group, click Tables and then click Cost.
The Cost table appears.
Here, you can see many types of cost values for the overall project (the total cost of the project summary task 0), project phases (summary tasks), and individual tasks.
At this point in the project life cycle, the project plan does not yet include a baseline; therefore, the Baseline column contains only zero values. Similarly, the project plan does not yet contain any actual progress, so the Actual column contains only zero values.
Next, you’ll check the project’s finish date.
On the Project tab, in the Properties group, click Project Information.
The Project Information dialog box appears.
In the Project Information dialog box, you can see the finish date as the project is currently scheduled. Note that you can edit the start date of the project here, but not its finish date. Project has calculated this finish date based on the start date plus the overall duration of the project.
Next, you will look at the duration values for this project.
In the Project Information dialog box, click Statistics.
The Project Statistics dialog box appears. Here again, you can see the project’s current start and finish dates.
This project currently has no baseline and actual work reported, so you see NA in the Baseline, Actual Start, and Actual Finish fields and zero values in the Actual Duration and Actual Work fields.
Note also that the cost value is the same as what you saw in the Task Sheet view.
Click Close to close the Project Statistics dialog box.
Key Points
A work resource’s maximum units (Max. Units) value and his or her working time (as set by the resource calendar) determine when the resource becomes overallocated.
The Resource Usage view enables you to view the details of assignments that cause resource overallocation.
You can manually or automatically resolve resource overallocations.
You can view cost details from the individual assignment level all the way to the entire project level.