I am managing three concurrent projects, and they all share the same pool of developers and designers. I constantly face resource conflicts where everyone is "over-allocated" on paper. What are the best techniques for resource leveling without pushing out all my deadlines? Are there specific software features or negotiation tactics that help when every project is considered a "top priority" by the business?
3 answers
Resource leveling in a matrix environment is all about "Critical Chain Project Management" (CCPM). Instead of managing individual tasks, manage the "buffers" and the availability of your most constrained resources (your "bottlenecks"). You need to have a honest conversation with the sponsors to rank the projects. If everything is a priority, nothing is. Once ranked, use "Resource Smoothing" if you have flexible deadlines, or "Resource Leveling" if your dates are fixed but you can add more people. I find that visual heatmaps in tools like MS Project or Smartsheet are the best way to prove to management that a team is over-capacity.
Do you find that "Resource Smoothing" is generally more acceptable to stakeholders than "Resource Leveling," since it doesn't change the project finish date?
Communication is key. Have a weekly 15-minute "Sync" with the other PMs to discuss resource overlaps before they become fires. It's much easier to solve a conflict two weeks out.
Great advice, Ryan. Proactive communication between PMs can solve 80% of allocation issues without ever needing to escalate to higher management or formal leveling processes.
Patrick, yes, stakeholders much prefer smoothing because the end date stays the same. However, smoothing only works if you have "float" or "slack" in your schedule. If your project is on the Critical Path with zero slack, you have no choice but to use Leveling, which will inevitably push the date. The key is to show both options to the stakeholders and let them decide: do they want the project later, or are they willing to pay for more resources to keep the date?