Project Management - Scheduling, Resources, and Budgeting (U3DB) Essay

Project Management - Scheduling, Resources, and Budgeting (U3DB) - Essay Example For example, when individual activities are assigned relevant human, material or other resources, they are treated independently and concurrency of resource usage is not assumed. It is only when resources are placed alongside activities inside the schedule that their over or under utilization becomes evident. Scheduling alternatives present varying levels of resource usage and optimization. In this phase, over or under-allocated resources can be identified and their usage smoothed out using techniques such as resource levelling (Heldman, 2005, p. 271). Resource scheduling is also important in that it can determine whether the project can be completed within the specified end date in the schedule. The project manager may not have enough resources to finish tasks on the critical path in time despite optimization in allocation. Tradeoffs between costs and time of completing the project have to be taken using techniques such as crashing. Important budgetary and business decisions can be taken including hiring of additional sources, outsourcing or negotiating a reduction in the scope of the project (Richman, 2002, p. 117) . Multi-project resource scheduling requires project management capabilities at a different and a more complex dimension. Lead project managers typically take an enterprise level view of the project rather than at each individual project within it. Project control also takes a new dimension with individual project managers taking larger responsibility for their own domains and coordinating through effective communication with the core group managing the project (Barkley, 2006, p. 62). For example, if 5 aircrafts are being manufactured for a single airline simultaneously in a manufacturing facility, each aircraft unit would be a separate project together forming one larger multi-project for that order. Outsourcing can also take place in various forms. It can be inter-departmental