Resource Leveling in Project Management: Key Techniques and Tools

What if you allocate resources to project tasks and realize that some employees are required for several assignments at the same time? Or a team member’s workload turns out to exceed his or her actual capacity? Without addressing these issues, resource allocation won’t be efficient, which puts the quality of work on a project at stake.

One of the ways to tackle these challenges is to apply resource leveling, a resource optimization technique. Read further to learn more about it and its potential to remove roadblocks for efficient resource allocation.

Resource Leveling: Essence, Functions, and Importance

Let’s consider the concept of project resource leveling in detail, review its functions, and how exactly it contributes to project success in complex multi-project environments with limited resources.

What is resource leveling?

Let’s give the resource leveling definition: according to PMBOK Guide, “resource leveling is a technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply.”

The importance of resource leveling in project management

The technique is applied when you have a limited number/amount of resources, including equipment, and you’ll have to overallocate them to get the work done. So, the essential function of resource leveling is to resolve resource conflicts and prevent employees from overload, because overload leads to a bottleneck, which increases waiting times and results in missed due dates and budget overrun.

Benefits of resource leveling in project management

1. It prevents employees from being overloaded. Sometimes employees have to work some extra hours to get the work done. However, overloading resources on a regular basis is a dangerous trend with negative consequences: increased waiting times, stress, mistakes, need to rework, missed due dates, budget overrun, burnout, and unsatisfied clients. Resource leveling aims to make sure that team members’ workload, as well as a project’s timeline, are realistic.
2. It increases employees’ productivity and quality of their work. In contrast to overallocated employees, those who have manageable workload will show much better results of their work.Therefore, resource leveling allows a project/resource manager to utilize available resources in the most efficient way, which in turn will contribute to better project outcomes and keep employees engaged.

When to Use Resource Leveling

Resource leveling is used in cases of decreased resource availability, when limited resources cannot cope with the planned scope of work and the project timelines are strict. Let’s take a look at the most common cases when resource leveling techniques are used:

• When the resource workload is uneven: some resources are overwhelmed while some employees are idle. In such a situation, waiting times are increased due to task dependencies, and employee productivity is low, therefore, project outcomes are far from being as good as expected. Workload management is an essential component of any project management strategy, so planning and considering workload in real time is of great importance for project success.
• When you have limited resources but need to deliver projects on time: again, with resource dependency between projects and tasks, resource allocation gets more complicated. To ensure efficient resource usage and make resources productive, it’s crucial to allocate them properly so that nobody is overloaded.
• When you need to do the project work faster without losing quality: the most important rule here is to assign resources to the tasks not only based on priorities but also experience and skills required. If resources work on too complex tasks, this may result in mistakes, low quality of work, and demotivation. As a result, resources are overwhelmed, exhausted, and demotivated, and clients aren’t satisfied because of missed due dates and low quality of project work.

Resource Leveling: Key Techniques

How does resource leveling resolve resource conflicts? According to the definition, it is a technique of adjusting a project’s timeline, i.e., delaying a project’s end date or extending its duration. Also, the following measures can be taken to level resources:

• Removing less important tasks,
• Allocating additional resources,
• Splitting the tasks up,
• Bringing the tasks forward,
• Assigning alternative resources (those who have more skills and expertise, if they are available). [1]

Sometimes, resource leveling requires the application of schedule compression techniques – fast tracking and crashing – that make it possible to perform the defined scope of work faster. For example, they can be applied to complete some tasks earlier, because a necessary employee will be unavailable later. Let’s take a closer look at the main resource leveling techniques.

Fast tracking

According to PMBOK Guide, it’s a “technique in which activities or phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel for at least a portion of their duration”, which makes it possible to complete the project or a certain series of tasks earlier. This only refers to the activities of the critical path. You can fast-track sequential activities by 33%, which means that a team member can start work on the next task after two thirds of the previous one have been completed. [2]

At the same time, this technique should be employed carefully as it can sometimes result in unexpected problems, rework, and even delays. The possibility of making mistakes while trying to complete the task faster increases. [3]

Crashing

PMBOK Guide defines crashing as “a technique used to shorten the schedule duration for the least incremental cost by adding resources.” In other words, a project manager adds extra resources to reach a milestone or a project’s due date earlier. This technique works only for the tasks in the critical path – performing them faster will affect the project’s timeline.

It should be kept in mind that crashing is accompanied by risks, too. First, schedule crashing at the expense of engaging extra resources can be costly and exceed the planned budget. Second, assigning employees “from outside” who are new to the team and aren’t familiar with the specific character of the work may lead even to delays. [3]

Finally, let’s examine what helps project/resource managers make resource leveling simple and efficient.

Project Resource Leveling Examples

When a team member works on several concurrent projects and is required for two tasks simultaneously, he or she won’t be able to complete both of them at a high quality and without being overloaded. In this case, a project or resource manager should decide which one can be performed later.

In a multi-project environment, where one critical resource works on several projects at the same time, a project or a resource manager should apply resource leveling techniques to avoid overload. They can either change the due dates of one of the projects, or postpone the start date of one of them, or reassign some tasks to another team member with similar skills and experience level. All three examples of resource leveling are efficient and will help deliver the projects with minimum risks for the due dates and emotional state of resources.

Resource Leveling Tools

Most project and resource management solutions have in-built algorithms that automatically perform resource leveling (and resource smoothing if necessary). Also, they provide other solutions to resolve resource conflicts and optimize employees workload. Let’s explore how they work through the example of Epicflow, a multi-project resource management tool. It’s designed to ensure the successful orchestration of multiple projects running concurrently, where resource conflicts and overallocation are inevitable. How does Epicflow help overcome these roadblocks and ensure enhanced resource leveling?

Gantt Chart for scheduling

It takes into account all dependencies between tasks across a multi-project setting and creates a sequence of assignments to be completed. Epicflow’s Gantt Chart is interactive, so, if necessary, you can edit the schedule, set dependencies, or assign resources at your own discretion.

Project leveling

This function makes it possible to create a task execution sequence depending on their priority or business value. You can set a necessary parameter (priority or business value) and the system will automatically determine dates for these tasks and create a corresponding Gantt Chart.

Automatic prioritization

Epicflow’s algorithms analyze all existing constraints (including shared resources between multiple projects) and calculate project and task priorities. It means that in case of resource conflicts, a project or resource manager should assign a resource to a project/task of higher priority, which will automatically resolve this conflict.

Resource allocation advisor

Epicflow’s Competence Management feature analyzes employees’ skills, availability, and capacity and suggests an employee who is a perfect candidate to complete a necessary task. Moreover, with a Resource Allocation Advisor, Epicflow users get valuable prompts on resource allocation without analyzing huge data sets and wasting time on the search. Besides, resource allocation in Epicflow is strengthened with AI: you can get AI resource allocation prompts based on previous experience. In such a way, users can choose between resource allocation based on skill sets or specific experience with clients. In both cases, resource allocation is semi-automated, making it easier to get the work done at the highest quality possible.

Predictive capabilities

Epicflow’s What-if Analysis makes it possible to try out various resource allocation scenarios, or other options like moving milestones or project start and end dates, analyze their impact on a project’s outcomes, and choose the best possible option. What’s more, users can share the scenarios, edit and save them, skip the scenarios for later or apply the changes if they are satisfied with their outcomes.

Conclusion: Level up your resource leveling with Epicflow

Let’s summarize the most important facts about resource leveling and its role in project management.

1. Resource leveling is a resource optimization technique with a primary goal to adjust a project’s timeline with the aim of matching resource demand with the available supply.
2. Its main purpose is to build a bridge between demand and supply to resolve resource conflicts and prevent employees’ overallocation. It’s equally profitable for the company and the resources: it decreases the risk of delays, set and keep realistic project deadlines, and helps to balance workloads and save a healthy work-life balance in employees.
3. The following activities are used to level project resources: shifting a project’s start date, extending its duration, changing the sequence of activities or task schedules, removing low-value tasks or splitting them up, allocating alternative resources, and applying schedule compression techniques – fast tracking and crashing.
4. Project and resource management tools provide a variety of solutions for resolving resource conflicts and making efficient resource allocation decisions, from automatic resource leveling to task prioritization and assistance in resource allocation decisions. With the software solutions like Epicflow resource leveling efforts bring the desired results faster and with less stress, thanks to more efficient resource management processes, addressing resource constraints, and more effective utilization of resources, thanks to a clearer understanding of resource availability. Resource capacity planning, automatic project and task prioritization, predicting possible bottlenecks, intelligent resource allocation, informed decision-making with AI technologies are a few examples Epicflow can help with to make complex multi-project environments easier to manage.