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Resource Leveling, Scheduling, and Deliverable Approvals
Project Management · Chapter 8: Driving Project ExecutionSection 8.9 · lesson 52 of 7313 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
Resolving over-allocation and getting finished deliverables formally accepted.
- Identify over-allocation using resource calendars and histograms
- Compare resource leveling with resource smoothing and their effect on the end date
- Distinguish verification from validation of a deliverable
- Record sign-off outcomes and link them to payment milestones
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Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,878 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Case
Twelve Hours Assigned, Eight Available
A schedule can be perfectly logical, and still impossible. Ines is a structural analyst at a made-up engineering firm. She has eight hours available each working day. On one day, the schedule assigns her twelve. She's over-allocated by twelve minus eight: four hours. Her load is twelve over eight, a hundred and fifty percent of capacity. The logic of the schedule never asked whether she was free. This lesson fixes that, and then follows finished work through to approval.
Over-Allocation
Bars Above the Capacity Line
Over-allocation is when the work assigned to a resource, in a period, is greater than the time it has available. A resource here is a person, a team, or a piece of equipment. On a resource histogram, assigned hours stand as bars against a capacity line. An over-allocation is a bar rising above the line, and the height above it is hours that can't be done. When that happens, something gives, usually without anyone deciding: unplanned overtime, less care, the activity quietly taking longer, or other work neglected. Each breaks the schedule's promise while the plan still looks on track. And it arises in execution too: a late predecessor, growing scope, a reassignment, or approved leave. So the resource view is re-examined whenever the live schedule changes. A sustained over-allocation is a plan that can't be carried out as written.
Resource Calendars
Calendars Set the Capacity Line
A resource calendar records when one resource can work: working days and hours, holidays, any part-time pattern, and planned leave. It sets the capacity line. So one assignment can be fine on one calendar, and an over-allocation on another. A part-timer with four hours a day, assigned six, is at a hundred and fifty percent. A full-timer given the same six hours is at seventy-five percent. Calendars move dates too. Four working days of one person's work takes five working days, if that person has a day of leave inside the span. A schedule shared across locations needs a calendar for each resource, because holidays differ by country, region and employer. And an out-of-date calendar makes an unhealthy histogram look healthy.
Resource Leveling
Delaying Work Until the Resource Is Free
Resource leveling adjusts the schedule by delaying activities until the resource they need is free, so nobody is assigned more than their calendar allows. It changes dates and nothing else. Work content, logic and hours stay the same. Usually you delay the activity with more float, or, if floats are equal, the lower priority one. Software can level automatically, but it doesn't know which deliverable a client is waiting for, so review its result. The effect on the end date: if the delay is no larger than the activity's float, the end date doesn't move. If it's larger, the end moves by the delay minus the float. Leveling can also change the critical path. Once one person must finish one activity before starting another, the two are joined by a resource dependency. The resource-constrained critical path respects both logic and resource limits, and can differ from the logic-only path. A leveled finish later than the baseline goes through change control.
Resource Smoothing
Evening Out Peaks Within Existing Float
Resource smoothing adjusts activities only within their existing float, so the end date doesn't change, and critical activities don't move. It aims to even out peaks. It's the conservative choice, because it promises the date. Its limits follow from that promise. It works only where float exists, so an overload on critical activities can't be smoothed away. It can shrink a peak without removing it, when the float is shorter than the overlap. And it spends float, the schedule's reserve against delay. An activity with two days of float before smoothing and none after is now critical. Neither technique reduces the total hours. Both only move them. Leveling gives up date certainty. Smoothing gives up float.
Worked Example
Ines Double-Booked on Days Three and Four
Now a worked example, with made-up figures. Activity A, a load analysis, needs Ines for four days at eight hours a day. Then activity C, a design note, takes three days for another analyst. Activity E, gathering site data, takes a technician two days. Then activity B, checking connection details, needs Ines for four days at four hours a day. From logic alone, A then C is seven days, and E then B is six. So the project ends on day seven, A then C is critical, and B has one day of float. B starts on day three, right after E. So on days three and four, Ines has eight hours of A plus four of B: twelve hours, four over, each day.
Worked Example
Smoothing Fails, Leveling Moves the End
Try smoothing first. B may start a day later, on day four, keeping the end. Day three clears, but day four still has twelve hours. One day of float can't cover a two-day overlap. Now level. Ines is busy with A through day four, so B can't start until day five: a two-day delay. Two minus one day of float: the end moves one day, to day eight. Every day is now eight hours or less. And the critical path has changed: A then B, eight days, joined only by Ines's time. A then C now has a day of float. Finally, check the calendar. If Ines has leave on day six, B works days five, seven, eight and nine. The project ends on day nine, two days after the original plan.
Quick Check
Five Days of Delay, Three of Float
Quick check. Leveling has to delay a different activity by five days. It had three days of float. What happens to the end date? Pause, and decide. Two days later. The first three days of delay are absorbed by float. Only the two beyond it reach the end date. No change would need a delay no bigger than the float. Five days later ignores the float altogether.
Choosing a Technique
Fixed Deadlines, Flexible Deadlines, Scarce Specialists
How do you choose? With a fixed deadline, like a contract date, a later end isn't available, so try smoothing first. If an overload remains, every option costs something: added capacity, approved overtime, less scope, or a new order of work. With a flexible deadline, leveling is usually cleaner, because nobody has to work overtime to meet the schedule. The question is whether the later finish costs more than the alternatives, decided with the sponsor. With a scarce specialist, their calendar sets the pace. Sequence their work by value, hand preparation to others, and treat added capacity carefully: an equal substitute needs time to learn the project. Hold the date with extra hours, or move the date? One side says a short burst of extra hours is an ordinary way to keep a commitment. The other says sustained overload degrades quality, and leveling gives the sponsor an honest date. How much extra hours cost in quality is a factual question that depends on the work. Who decides is a question of values. Either way, see the trade-off before choosing.
Verification and Validation
Built as Specified Versus Meets the Need
Now the second half: getting finished work approved. There are two distinct checks. Verification checks a deliverable against its requirements and written acceptance criteria. Was it built as specified? Validation is the stakeholder who will use it confirming it meets their actual need. Is the specified deliverable the right one? They can disagree. A report can meet every written criterion, and pass verification, but if the criteria missed what the client needs to decide, it fails validation. Verification usually comes first, and internally, because defects are cheaper to fix before the client sees them. A need that was never in the criteria is usually a change, priced and approved.
Sign-Off
Acceptance, Partial Acceptance or Rejection
Sign-off is the formal, recorded decision by an authorized person that a deliverable is accepted, accepted in part, or rejected. Who signs is decided in advance, in the plan or the contract. The signer decides against the written acceptance criteria and the specific version submitted, not a general impression. The record states the deliverable and version, each criterion and its result, the evidence, the signer's name and role, the date, the decision, and for anything less than full acceptance, reasons and required actions. Acceptance: the deliverable meets the criteria and the need, so the work closes, and a linked payment can become due. Partial acceptance: some parts are accepted as final, and the rest are returned for correction, each named with reasons. Rejection: the whole is not accepted, with reasons tied to specific criteria, so rework and resubmission can follow. Partial acceptance settles part of the deliverable. Rejection settles nothing.
Quick Check
Signage Plan Sent Back
Quick check. A client reviews a clinic fit-out package. She signs off the floor plans and the lighting plan, but sends back the signage plan, because it misses a stated criterion. Which sign-off outcome is that? Pause, and decide. Partial acceptance. Two parts are settled as final, and one returns for correction, with its reason recorded. It isn't acceptance, because a part fails a criterion. And it isn't rejection, because rejection settles nothing, while here two parts are done.
Payment Milestones
Linking Approval to Payment
An approval milestone is reached only when a named deliverable is accepted, so its date stands for a decision, not just finished work. A payment milestone is a contract point where payment falls due. Linking them protects the client from paying for unaccepted work, and gives the supplier an objective trigger. But they differ: payment may also need an invoice, and the contract's payment period. In a made-up contract worth eighty thousand dollars, twenty-five percent is due when the interim report is approved: twenty thousand dollars. If partial payment is allowed, and three of four equally weighted sections are accepted, three quarters of that is due: fifteen thousand. The other five thousand waits for the fourth section. Paying on submission, before approval, removes the protection the link was meant to give. Acceptance terms and payment disputes are contract matters, so involve counsel when they arise.
Case Example
Dana Records a Partial Acceptance
Here's how it fits together. Dana manages a made-up engineering project. Mei, its only geotechnical specialist, has eight hours a day, and she's double-booked. Activity R, finishing the interim report, needs eight hours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Activity S, a foundation analysis, needs four hours on Thursday and Friday. That's twelve hours, two days running. R is fixed by the client's Friday date. S has two days of float, because its successor doesn't start until the following Wednesday. Delaying R would delay the client's approval and payment, and the only other qualified analyst is booked. So Dana moves S to the following Monday and Tuesday: a two-day delay against two days of float. The end date holds. The trade-off: S now has no float, so any new problem with it moves the end date. Dana tells the sponsor, and notes the lost float in her status report. On Friday, a peer reviewer verifies the report against its criteria. Then the client's facilities director validates it: he accepts sections one to three, and returns section four, which omits a required cost range. Dana records it as a partial acceptance, with the reason and a correction date. The milestone payment waits, because a clean record is worth more than an invoice a few days earlier.
Key Takeaways
Fit the Work, Then Get It Accepted
To recap: over-allocation shows when assigned hours exceed what a resource calendar allows. Leveling delays work to fit, and may move the end date by the delay minus the float. Smoothing keeps the date, but only within float. Verification checks the specification. Validation checks the need. And sign-off records acceptance, partial acceptance, or rejection, with reasons, which approval and payment milestones can follow.
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Project Management (Business 230) is a self-paced online course of 73 video lessons in 12 chapters, from starting and defining a project to planning, budgets, scheduling tools, proposals, contracts, execution, monitoring, closure, teams and certification. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
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