From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Balance resource assignment variables - Microsoft Project Tutorial

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Balance resource assignment variables

“

- [Instructor] Resource assignments are made up of three variables, duration, work, and resource availability, sometimes called units. You can juggle these to meet schedule objectives or resolve scheduling issues. Duration is the length of an activity, from its start to its finish. Work, also called effort, represents the person hours it takes to complete the activity. Resource availability, or units, represent the amount of time someone is allocated to work on an activity. The relationship between these three variables can be expressed as an equation. Duration is equal to work divided by resource units. Like any equation, you can change any two of the three variables, but not all three. To see how this equation works, let's start with an activity estimated at eight hours of work. If the person assigned is available full time, the activity should be done after eight hours. So the duration is also eight hours, or one work day. Most of the time, an activity's work stays the same. So playing with resource assignments boils down to two situations. If you know how long you want the activity to take, set the duration. The resulting resource units is the availability needed to finish the work in that duration. If you know the resource availability, assign resource units. Then the duration is based on work and units. Work, duration, and availability are the three variables you can adjust when you assign resources to activities.

Contents