Resource Leveling in Project Management
Resource Leveling: A Comprehensive Guide
Why Resource Leveling is Important
Resource leveling is a critical project management technique that helps balance resource demand with resource availability. It's important because:
• It prevents resource overallocation, which can lead to burnout, reduced quality, and missed deadlines
• It optimizes resource utilization across the project timeline
• It helps maintain a sustainable pace of work for team members
• It provides realistic scheduling by accounting for resource constraints
• It reduces project risks related to resource availability
What is Resource Leveling?
Resource leveling is a project scheduling technique used to adjust the project schedule to address resource limitations, overallocations, or uneven resource usage. It involves modifying activity start and finish dates to achieve a more balanced distribution of resource requirements throughout the project duration.
Resource leveling is part of the Resource Management Knowledge Area in project management and is specifically addressed in the Develop Schedule process of the PMI framework.
How Resource Leveling Works
Resource leveling follows these general steps:
1. Identify resource overallocations: Determine where and when resources are assigned more work than their available capacity.
2. Analyze scheduling flexibility: Examine which activities have float or slack that allows them to be delayed.
3. Apply leveling techniques:
• Delaying activities: Postponing non-critical activities within their float
• Splitting activities: Breaking work into segments with gaps between them
• Substituting resources: Using alternative resources with similar skills
• Smoothing: Minor schedule adjustments to balance resource usage
4. Evaluate impacts: Assess how the leveling affects project duration, critical path, and other constraints.
5. Implement changes: Update the project schedule based on the leveling decisions.
Resource Leveling Methods
• Time-constrained leveling: Maintains the project end date but may require additional resources
• Resource-constrained leveling: Maintains resource limits but may extend the project duration
• Manual leveling: Project manager makes case-by-case decisions about how to resolve overallocations
• Automated leveling: Using project management software algorithms to calculate optimal solutions
Resource Leveling Considerations
• Activity dependencies and relationships
• Critical path activities versus non-critical activities
• Resource availability calendars
• Priority of activities or projects
• Impact on project constraints (scope, time, cost, quality)
• Resource skill levels and interchangeability
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Resource Leveling
1. Distinguish from resource smoothing: Resource leveling may extend the project schedule, while resource smoothing only uses available float.
2. Understand impact on critical path: Know that resource leveling can change which activities are on the critical path by consuming float on previously non-critical activities.
3. Recognize the indicators: Questions about "overallocated resources," "balancing workload," or "addressing resource conflicts" are likely about resource leveling.
4. Know the triggers: Resource leveling is triggered when resources are assigned more work than their available capacity or when resource usage is inefficiently distributed.
5. Remember the trade-offs: Questions may ask about choosing between maintaining schedule (time-constrained) or maintaining resource limits (resource-constrained).
6. Connect to other knowledge areas: Resource leveling affects schedule management, cost management, and risk management.
7. Identify outputs: Resource-leveled schedules, updated resource histograms, and revised project documents are outputs of resource leveling.
8. Apply in scenarios: For scenario-based questions, look for clues about resource constraints and project priorities to determine the appropriate leveling approach.
9. Calculate impacts: Be prepared to calculate how leveling might change activity dates or project duration in quantitative questions.
10. Link to project contexts: Consider how different project environments (agile, predictive, hybrid) might approach resource leveling differently.