By reviewing resource (resources: The people, equipment, and material that are used to complete tasks in a project.) information, such as assignments (assignment: A specific resource that is assigned to a particular task.), availability (availability: Indicates when and how much of a resource's time can be scheduled for assigned work. Availability is determined by project and resource calendars, resource start and finish dates, or the level at which the resource is available for work.), overallocations (overallocation: The result of assigning more tasks to a resource than the resource can accomplish in the working time available.) or underallocations (underallocation: Assigning a resource to work fewer hours than the resource has available.), costs (cost: The total scheduled cost for a task, resource, or assignment, or for an entire project. This is sometimes referred to as the current cost. In Project, baseline costs are usually referred to as "budget."), and variances (variance: The difference between baseline and scheduled task or resource information, they usually occur when you set a baseline plan and begin entering actual information into your schedule. Variances can occur in work, costs, and schedule.) between planned and actual work (actual work: The amount of work that has been performed on a task or assignment. When you enter actual work on a task, the remaining work is calculated using this formula: Remaining Work = Work - Actual Work. Actual work is often referred to as "actuals."), you can verify that resources are optimally assigned to tasks (task: An activity that has a beginning and an end. Project plans are made up of tasks.) to get the results you want.
Tip This article is part of a series of articles
within the Project Map
that describe a broad set of project management activities.
We call these activities "goals" because they are organized around the project management life
cycle: Build a plan, track and manage a project, and close a project.
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See all goals on the Project Map
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Review resource assignments To ensure that important tasks have not been overlooked and that the most appropriate resources are assigned to do each task,
you need to look at the task list or resource list with assignments listed.
Check for overallocated or underallocated resources Review each resource's total amount of work to ensure that neither too much nor too little work has been assigned.
Review the variance between a resource's planned and actual work Once the project is under
way, reviewing the difference between expected work and what is actually being completed is important so that you can effectively balance resource workloads over time and distribute work among resources.
Review resource cost variances Review costs and variances per task, per resource, or per assignment to gauge the progress of individual resources and resources that are working together on a task.
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See all goals on the Project Map
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