Project Time Management

You will have to submit an MPP file, your Excel Time Phased Budget file, a Word file.

· Do Not use any auto-levelling or any automatic tool in MS Project to perform your levelling.  Do not split any of your tasks automatically or manually.

· Duration is not the same of work.  An Activity can take 1 day, but involve only 2 hours of work by a single resource.

· If you don't have any levelling issues, you can modify your mpp file such that you do have some over-allocations and make that your pre-leveling mpp file.

1) Implement all feedback given to date. 

2) You also need to put the percentage amount of duration the resource is spending on the task (Units in MS Project).  All of your durations should be one day or longer (not less than a day).  If you accidentally have durations that are less than a day, make them a day minimum but follow the instructions below to make sure you have the correct amount of work.  At least a quarter of your Activities should have Units other than the default for the Resource, which will be 100% for full-time and 50% for part-time. For example, you may have a 2-day duration Activity but with only 4 hours of work required over the 2 days based on your labour cost estimate Excel worksheets. In your mpp, you would need to set up the units for the Activity to be 25% for the Resource doing the work.  MS Project will take the 2 days of the duration (16 hours), multiple it by 25% and calculate that 4 hours of actual work is being done over the 2 days.   See the Resources tab for the task and select a resource.  Once you select the Resource, the default units for the Resource will appear based on what you have in your Resource Sheet.  For example, 100% for a full time person, or perhaps 50% for a part-time person.   Either way, in the example immediately above, you would change this to 25% to get the correct amount of work.

Use "Add New Column" and select "Work" to verify you have the correct work amount -- in the example above you should see 4 hours.   /2

3) You will need to save and submit an .mpp file in Resource Usage View before you perform resource leveling (your pre-leveling mpp file), as well as capturing a screen shot of your Gantt Chart for your Word doc (see #6 below for marks).  This MPP file to be submitted in Resource Usage view, (this means submitting file that opens in Resource Usage View with left hand side columns of Cost, Work, and Assignment Units -- an on the right hand side cells with Work, and Cost). 

4) In MS Project resource level the project  manually  to create a new schedule. Copy screen shots of the before and after Gantt charts from your pre and post leveling mpp files. Submit a Word document in a Business Document Format (including title page, page numbers, headings including an introduction and conclusion) with a 5-column table which includes your: WBS Code, Activity Name, what your allocation status was before and after leveling, and a paragraph or two on what actions you took, and lastly the justification/rationale for your leveling actions which means why was it a good idea to level this particular Activity the way you did.  Remember to include your pre and post levelling screen shots of your Gantt chart in your Word doc after this table, and submit both pre and post mpp files to the Dropbox, in the correct views.  /4

Note - reducing the amount of work on an over-allocated Activity is NOT resource leveling.  For example, an Activity takes 3 days, with one labourer working on it 8 hours a day, so it's 24 hours of work.  If you simply reduce the duration to 2 days, you'll likely end up with 16 hours of work in MS Project.  You've shortened the effort (the work) to perform the Activity, and this is NOT leveling.  Re-evaluating the work involved in an Activity and deciding it's possible to do it with less work could be possible in a project, but it's not acceptable for this assignment which focuses on leveling.

5) Save and submit another mpp file in Resource Usage View (same criteria as above) after you have performed your leveling.   Also capture a screen shot of your Gantt Chart for your Word doc (see above).   /2 marks for the pre and post .mpp leveling files

6) Add 3 milestones at a deliverable or sub-deliverable level (not at the WP level)   /1