Resource Levelling

[alw2170]

I need to do resource levelling but I am hesitant to do the automated levelling because my plan is close to 2000 lines long and need to keep an eye on how far out certain sections are pushing when levelling.

What is the best approach to resource levelling that you'd suggest? A few related questions below:

• Some tasks take <1 hour to complete - is there a reason I wouldn't want to level minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour? I read somewhere that day-by-day is recommended; however, when I do that there is no change to tasks
• Is it better to resource-level by section or by resource if doing it manually?
• Is there a way to prevent certain sections of the plan from pushing beyond a given date?
• If I resource-level and then a task from within a section is removed, will it automatically update the timings? Or only if automatic resource levelling is turned on?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated to help me resource level without blowing it up!

[#2]

alw2170,
I don't use leveling myself so my experience is limited but since no one else has offered advice/suggestions, let me give you my take on leveling.

You say you have close to 2000 tasks and that some are less than an hour in duration. On your first point, if your plan has tasks that are less then an hour and others that have weeks of duration I suggest you review the level of detail. The best plans have tasks that are of similar duration span (e.g. hours, days, weeks, or months). I would never set the leveling option to minute by minute unless the whole plan is made of up tasks with durations less than an hour (e.g. chemical process monitoring). Even hour by hour leveling can send you "chasing your tail" in normal scheduling scenarios. In my view the best leveling option is week by week or month by month as that gives satisfactory results without extra burden of "hunting down" that elusive "red man" showing as overallocated which can sometimes occur with an hour by hour setting.

On your last point, yes, if you have leveling options set for automatic, then a task within a leveled group will automatically be updated if that task is inactivated or deleted entirely.

As far as your other points, it depends on what you want from leveling and how much control you want over your plan. Leveling goes by a set of rules and cannot take into account the "soft" issues of managing a plan (e.g. resource skill level, task level of difficulty, risk factors, etc.).

Something else to consider. Why do you think you need to do resource leveling? If it's because you already have several cases of resource overallocation, then it makes sense, but if you "need" to do it to try to optimize your plan's resources, then you're heading down the wrong path. Some users are under the impression that resource leveling is a way to optimize their plan and that is not the case.

If you haven't already, I suggest you take a look at this article on Leveling:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/resource-leveling-dialog-box-0d280b16-2753-4630-8cca-8c50...

Hopefully this offers some help. Perhaps others will eventually jump in with their thoughts.

John