Lecture 4 - resource allocation

In general:

How labor, equipment, space etc. should be distributed to acquire the highest possible efficiency. Performed after activities, effort, and risks have been identified.

• The right amount of people for each job.
• The right amount of work for each employee.

Schedules

• Activity schedules

Indicating start and completion dates for each activity. * Resource schedule

Indicating dates when resources needed and the levels of available resources. * Cost schedule

Showing accumulative costs, total spending over time.

Resource schedule and allocation

• Resource types

  • Includes labour, equipment, materials, space, services etc.
  • Time (duration)

  Can often be reduced by adding more staff. * Money

  Used to buy other types of resources.

Allocation step by step

1. Identify resources needed and create a resource requirements list.
2. Identify resource types, resources within a group are interchangeble, and resources between groups are not.
3. Allocate resource types to activites, and examine each resource type histogram.
4. If resources needed exceeds the available resources at some time, perform resource smoothing.

• Resource histograms, where the first is before resource smoothing. Available resources are the dotted line, and the required are shown with lines. Resource need ___ |5| ___ | | |4|....___....|...|...|...|___..... |3|___| |___| |___| | | |2| | | | | | | | |1| | | | | | | | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Week

|5|
|4|....___.....___.....___.___.___.
|3|___|   |___|   |___|   |   |   |
|2|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|1|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Resource clashes

Occurs when the same resource is needed in more than one place at the same time. Can be resolved by delaying one activity and taking advantage of the float time, or if that is not possible, push back project completion. Could also be resolved by taking resources from a non-critical activity, or by bringing in additional resources - increases cost.

Prioritizing

When prioritizing between two competing activities, there are two ways of doing this. * Total float priority - Those with the smallest float have the highest priority. * Ordered list priority - Takes account the duration of an activity, as well as the float, see Burman's.

Burman's priority list

1. Shortest critical activities
2. Other critical activities.
3. Shortest non-critical activities.
4. Non-critical activities with least float.
5. Non-critical activities.

Resource usage

Need to... * maximise %usage of resources = reduce idle periods between tasks. * balance costs against early completion date. * allow for contingency.

          /\
Target   /  \   Cost/
scope   /    \  effort
       /      \
      /________\
       lead time

Critical chains

When performing resource scheduling, new dependencies may be created, which may lead to additional/new critical chains. Avoid adding dependencies to the activity network to reflect resource constraints. This avoids messiness and a resource constraint may dissappear during the project, but the dependency will remain visually. Instead, amend dates on schedule to reflect resource constraints.

Eventually, actual individuals will have to replace the resource types for tasks. A number of new factors will then have to be considered: * Availability * Criticality * Risk * Training * Team building * Motivation

Cost schedules

Cost schedules can then be produced, these include: * Staff costs including vacation pay, social security etc. * Overheads, expenditure that cannot be directly related to individual projects or jobs e.g. office space. * Usage charges, sometimes projects are charged directly for their use of resources e.g. travel costs or computer time.

Resource allocation concerns

• All scheduble resources covered? Specialists, testing teams etc
• All ’heads’ are not the same: affects estimates
• Multi-tasking has an overhead time cost
• Overplanning and micro-management
• Underplanning and weak foresight