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6 Project Resource Allocation - Students

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8 views18 pages

6 Project Resource Allocation - Students

Uploaded by

xufangyu3
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Project Management

Project Planning and Resource Allocation

Reza Skandari
Resource Allocation

Resource allocation:
 Allocating resources to project in order to
 Complete scope
 Finish on time and
 Under budget
financial, human, technical, material etc.

Resource loading:
 Gantt chart + WBS: resources needed for a given schedule
 firm’s resources: human resources and others
 outsourcing needs: vendor management
Budget Allocation/Loading over time

 Notice: uneven costs


Resource Schedule

 Notice: human resources


What if Resources are Limited?
Main challenge

Triple Threat!
 mismatch between project resource needs and resource availability
 Start and/or finish dates might have to be adjusted (or both)
 Domino effect!
 Actual costs may differ from estimated costs: resource risk
 Cost to expedite project
 Project scope may be a challenge to fit exactly right
Resource Loading

Some Principles

Load resources into project as and when needed


 Don’t hire the entire team
 Impact on cost and productivity: idle  morale

Hire the people most suited to the task at hand


 Multiple skills, problem solving, political/organizational skills
 Best may be the enemy of good: cost, hire more people instead

Hire people slowly but fire quickly


 Think carefully before hiring people
 Don’t carry “dead weight”
Resource Leveling: Advantages

Feasible Schedule
Less hands-on management is required
 Similar resource use in every time period
 Similar budget used every time period
 Similar number of people to be managed each period

Improves morale: consistency


 Fewer personnel problems: idle

Helps to manage schedule effectiveness


 Time and cost slippage
 Generally, improves cost-effectiveness of projects
Strategy for allocating resources to projects.
Rationale for these prioritization rules?
 As soon as possible
 As late as possible
 Shortest task first
 Most resources first
 Minimum slack first
 Most critical followers
 Most successors
Priority Rules

Rules:  Shortest task first:


 As soon as possible:  progress + morale
 critical chain  release resources
 future is uncertain: money,  Most resources first:
resources  black cloud, free
 optimism in the beginning  Critical chain:
 As late as possible:  Minimum slack first
 rainy day  Most critical followers
 break-downs  Most successors
 flexibility
Priority Rules

While not optimal, the schedules are very good:


 allocation transparency, easy to communicate
Take the CPM/PERT schedule as a baseline
 step through the schedule, move activities around to levelize
resources
 Use one or more priority rules
They are the only feasible methods used to manage large projects
Significant uncertainty about availability of people more than money
Optimizing Methods

Optimizing Methods
 Finds the one best solution
 Advanced mathematical programming or enumeration
 Not all projects can be optimized
 Untransparent, sensitive/unrobust to inputs, not flexible
 Can we do the project in 34 weeks?
 How to achieve the target delivery time?
Example: altering sequence
Example
Example
Imbalance in Resource Loading

The main
problem is
that there
are
insufficient
resources
for the days
with too
many tasks
Leveling of resource A

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