“Time is the most precious resource there is — you have to protect it.” – Jesse Itzler Most project managers are aware that time is our most precious resource, particularly as the clock of deadlines keeps ticking. However, time isn’t the only resource us project managers need to concern ourselves with. There’s the management of…

In my recent “Is MS Project’s Leveling Optimal?” article, I covered the fact that MS Project may not produce optimally leveled schedules in terms of schedule length. The analysis showed us how well Project’s leveling performs relative to established optima. In a comment on that article, Eric Uyttewaal suggested it would be informative to explore…

The objective of resource leveling is to minimize schedule length while honoring precedence relationships and resource constraints. If we know what a schedule’s optimal leveled length is, we can compare that to leveling results that Project provides. In a prior article, we assessed the optimality of Project’s leveling relative to one particular schedule. The next…

For the project manager, the objective of resource leveling is to minimize the length of the resource-feasible schedule. For the computer scientist, the objective is to write code that will find a resource-feasible schedule in a reasonably short amount of time. The resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) is NP-hard, which means that finding an optimal…

A person inexperienced in project management may think that resource leveling is a method of making use of resources having the same height. Most experienced project managers know that it is a resource optimization technique which tries to make the best use of available resources to create a workable project schedule. Resource leveling is often…

  The schedule in the figure above was leveled in Project using the standard leveling order. Even though it appears to be discontinuous, the critical path is correct. It takes into account the leveling delay (lag) between tasks 4 and 5, but, what is causing that leveling delay? The start of task 2 depends on…

  In the figure above, a schedule was resource leveled using Project (left Gantt chart). It was resource smoothed using Excel (right Gantt chart). Both results are resource-feasible, but the schedule on the right has a smoother resource allocation. To contrast the resource optimization techniques of leveling and smoothing, I will share how both schedules…

An interesting question about resource calendars in the Project Standard and Professional user forum prompted me to write this blog post article. After using Microsoft Project for over 21 years, one of the nuggets of wisdom I have gleaned from this software is, “Always trust the schedule.” When you assign resources to a task, Microsoft…

In this brief article, I would like to show you the easy way to display the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in the Resource Usage view. This view is a really wonderful way to see all of your project resources, along with the tasks assigned to each resource. As a bonus, the Resource Usage view displays…

  Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Audience: – Project Managers – Project Web Access Administrators – Project Management Office – Business analyst – Decision makers Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, you…