Resource Leveling Without Burning People Out: A Field Checklist
Resource leveling adjusts a project schedule to resolve over-allocation -- situations where a resource is assigned more work in a given period than it has capacity to perform. The goal is a schedule where every resource works within its available capacity at every point in the project. In 2022, with labour shortages leaving many project teams operating below full strength and return-to-office transitions adding coordination overhead, resource leveling is more consequential than in a normal year. Here is a field checklist for doing it well.
Before You Level
Confirm that your resource capacity numbers reflect reality, not plan. Planned capacity assumes everyone is fully available. Actual capacity includes training, administrative duties, other projects, and recovery time. If you are using 100 percent availability as your capacity input, your leveling output will be wrong.
Distinguish between hard constraints and soft constraints. A hard constraint is a date or sequence that cannot move without fundamental scope or contract changes. A soft constraint is a preference or a working assumption. Most over-allocation is caused by soft constraints being treated as hard. Before leveling, explicitly identify which constraints are truly hard.
Check that your task durations are based on the same assumptions as your resource availability. A task estimated for a five-day week should not be assigned to a resource that has a four-day week on that project. Mismatched assumptions produce over-allocation that leveling cannot resolve without extending the schedule.
The Leveling Checklist
List every over-allocated resource and the period of over-allocation. Be specific: Jane Doe is over-allocated by 30 percent in weeks 7 through 9. Do not attempt to level an over-allocation you cannot precisely describe.
For each over-allocation, identify which tasks are driving it. Sort the conflicting tasks by priority. Which task is most critical to the project objective? Which is most flexible in timing? Which can be delayed without affecting the critical path?
Try resequencing before adding duration. Adding a duration buffer is the lazy fix -- it extends the schedule by the amount of the over-allocation. Resequencing -- moving a non-critical task to a period when the resource has capacity -- resolves the over-allocation without extending the schedule. Try this first.
If resequencing is not sufficient, consider splitting tasks. A task that can be split can have its second half delayed to a period when resource capacity is available. Not all tasks can be split (a concrete pour cannot stop at 50 percent), but many can.
If you must add duration, document the cascade effect. Extending a task to reduce resource loading almost always affects downstream tasks. Document which tasks are affected, what the new dates are, and whether any of those dates violate hard constraints.
After leveling, check that you have not created new over-allocations. Resources freed from one task are sometimes immediately over-allocated on another. Run the leveling analysis again after each adjustment until no over-allocations remain.
Review the leveled schedule with the resource owners, not just the project manager. A resource owner who does not know that their team has been resequenced will not plan accordingly. Leveling is not complete until the people doing the work have seen and agreed to the revised assignments.
XNM supports public-sector and capital-project organisations in project controls and resource management. Reach out to XNM's program & project delivery advisory team to discuss resource management for your programme.