Microsoft® Office Project 2007 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Solving Resource Conflicts

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✓	Checking for resource availability
✓	Changing resource assignments
✓	Adding resources
✓	Examining task drivers
✓	Using multiple undo
✓	Using resource leveling

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When you’ve used all your skills, experience, and data to create what you consider to be a solid plan for your project, you might think you’re ready to begin. But it’s always a good idea to take a step back and examine your plan before you commit to it and proceed.

Taking the time to review almost any plan reveals some issues that you should resolve before you begin working on your first task. It will be painfully obvious if you have devised a schedule that runs a few weeks past your target deadline, or if you have a budget overrun that puts your project in the red soon after you start. But more subtle problems, such as a person who is assigned to work for 24 hours a day for three weeks, also deserve your attention.

In this chapter, you take a look at your resource planning to make sure that your resource assignments are as realistic as possible before you commit to your Project plan.

Keeping Resources in Line

Before you finalize your plan, you have to take into account your resources’ workload. When you assigned resources to tasks in your project, you might have unknowingly created situations where your people were working many more hours on a given day than it makes sense to ask somebody to work. These resource overallocations can mean that nobody ...