Forum Discussion
Issues with leveling
- Great questions and very normal challenges. Here's my recommendation of managing 10-15 projects at any given time and always resource loading.
1. Setup the task types correctly as intended for the type of work you're doing
2. Resource load them and adjust your resources
3. Setup your tasks with dependencies on the actual work dependencies
4. Do NOT use resource leveling, it causes too many problems that you're not able to decipher
5. Review your Resource loading and prioritize 'who' you want to add additional dependencies on their tasks to not only prioritize their work but it will help with the resource loading for that individual.
**NOTE: As you add dependencies due to resource overallocations, document your 'notes' with some info that you can later filter and present as a report. This is great for building a case for getting additional resources.
**NOTE: Use your critical path and total slack to review the tasks for the overallocated individuals. If they're Overallocated and on or very near the critical path use a custom field to flag those tasks as Risks. Along with your notes, this is another segmentation of your schedule to get the right visibility of your challenges and have data to back it up.
6. Repeat step 5 as necessary to level (prioritize) the work
I know this is simplifying it but give it a whirl and let us know how its coming along. Also, download Dale Howard MVP's filters to verify that you have all of your dependencies and constraints set. Here's a link to it and he has a free download https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oidjqs_0EXg&t=6s
Still confused I see, as are we all. I read your post yesterday and also conferred with a colleague about how best we might help you. Project can be a very complex app especially with regard to the whys and wherefores of the leveling algorithm. I've never used it myself and never delved deeply into how it works with various scenarios. You might want to check out this post on the StackExchange forum:
In your current posting you present a considerable amount of information but for someone on this forum to really help, we would need to look at your files in depth and spend a fair amount of time to experiment with your files to provide some kind of answer. It's not a simple or quick process. I do not have the time to provide that assistance and I doubt my colleagues do either. Since you are struggling with Project, you might want to consider hiring a competent Project consultant for in-depth training.
John