Effective Project Management: Traditional, Adaptive, Extreme, Fourth Edition

Chapter 7. Finalizing the Schedule and Cost Based on Resource Availability

The hammer must be swung in cadence, when more than one is hammering the iron.

—Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher

Behind an able man there are always other able men.

—Chinese proverb

Work smarter, not harder.

—Anonymous

Considering Resource Availability

The final step to putting together the project plan is to assign the resources according to the schedule developed in Chapter 6. Up to this point, you have identified the tasks in the project and developed a schedule that meets the expected end date of the project. Now you need to determine if you can accomplish this schedule with the resources available. This chapter looks at tools and methods available to help you answer this question.

There could be cases where the resources are not available according to the project schedule. In those situations, the project manager has to revert to the original project definition, budget, time, and resource allocations to resolve the scheduling problem, which may require additional time, budget, and resource allocation in order to comply with the requested deliverables and deliverable schedule.

Leveling Resources

Resource leveling is part of the broader topic of resource management. This is an area that has always created problems for organizations. Following are some of the situations that organizations have to deal with:

• Committing people to more than they can reasonably handle in the given time frame, reasoning that they will ...