The "Excellent" Idea
We frequently get involved in resource loading practices and here is one of them that we encountered recently:
The Initial Honeymoon
It seems these are excellent ideas and every Project should implement. Therefore, planner starts with resource pool development and resource loading. For example, for the activity: Welding of Feed water line, he/she adds the resources to the activity as per the next image:
Initially, everyone is impressed. Management feels in control because they see man-hours calculated and people assigned. For a few weeks, it is all happiness, until the progress and math start catching up with the reality of the inputs.
The "Trick" Phase
The Planner soon realizes the Budgeted Units are too high to be acceptable. To hide this, he/she resort to "tricks" within the software:
- The Percentage Trick: Budgeted units/time are added in percentage form to make the numbers look manageable.
- The Random Entry: Entering random numbers for budgeted units simply to satisfy the management team's visual requirements.
A Mockery of Project Planning
These practices are wrong, absurd, and a mockery of professional scheduling. Resource Loading requires data, calculations, norms, and correct settings. It cannot be done by playing with software percentages.
If the planning system is built on manipulated numbers, your Planned Curves and actual progress reports will be fundamentally wrong.
Discussion
I think that Resource loading needs to be based on estimates. In the above activity of feed water line welding, its a good practice to enter the estimate of each resource as per the estimate, for example, the crane may not be required for 192 hours for the activity. so entering the estimated budgeted hours of the crane will give better picture of progress. Thanks
Thanks Naveen for the comment,
That's correct. Also, due to complexity (or might be simplicity!) of the software, any planner should know what is the meaning of Budgeted Unit, Unit/Time and what setting is the right one as per the project scope of work. Obviously, when a planner adds a crane with 192 hours, it indicates that he/she did nit know the concept. Also, assigning Driver, Safety office, etc. is wrong practice.
I think that Resource loading needs to be based on estimates. In the above activity of feed water line welding, its a good practice to enter the estimate of each resource as per the estimate, for example, the crane may not be required for 192 hours for the activity. so entering the estimated budgeted hours of the crane will give better picture of progress. Thanks
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