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TEAMFLY140 RESOURCE LEVELING, GAMES OF CHANCE

In life, they say that two things are certain: death and taxes. When it comes to
computer-based resource leveling there are also a couple of things that you can
bet on. First, don’t expect to obtain an optimum solution. Second, you will rarely
obtain the same solution, even within the same program. And, we might add,
there are no assurances that the higher-priced or more functionally endowed
products will provide shorter or more consistent results.

That is not to assume that the software designers are either lax or inept
regarding the resource leveling function. On the contrary, a lot of effort
has gone into most of these products to support effective resource schedul-
ing, and excellent resource leveling capabilities have been available for more
than 20 years. The problem is primarily one of tradeoffs, and of real world
considerations.

It may very well be possible to generate an optimized solution. However, you
may not wish to pay the price for executing such routines. First, it would tend to
require extensive computer resources. Second, it would require so many itera-
tions to slow down the process to an unacceptable level. However, even more
important, it would require the user to make critical and unnecessary decisions
long before they are needed, and then to relinquish control of this complex
process to the computer. And because conditions change as the project is being
scheduled and executed, the decisions made at the beginning may no longer be
appropriate down the line. User intervention may be required to produce the
right resource schedule.

The issue here is that there are usually sensitive criteria that must be consid-
ered when deciding which task should get the limited resources. In the first place,
it would be tedious to define all of these decision factors to the computer (after all
we are already protesting the amount of detail that must be entered to produce a
decent project model). But, more to the point, it would be even more difficult,
and unrealistic, to make these determinations very far in advance of the period of
work execution.

There are definite benefits to be gained from employing computerized re-
source leveling routines, especially to get the big picture. But, if we want to be re-
alistic, relative to detailed resource scheduling, we will need to take a short-term
prospective, and fully interact with the computer.

Tool Tip Responding to my philosophy that resource leveling
to the end of a two-year-long project may be unrealistic, Scitor
added a Level until xx/xx/xx Date option in PS7 and PS8. Look
for this option in other products, as well.