Best Practice 3: Assigning Resources to All Activities
A resource is anything required to perform work. Because resource requirements directly relate to an activity’s duration, assigning resources to activities ensures that the duration of activities using them will be realistic and rational. Because labor, material, equipment, burdened rates, and funding requirements are examined to determine the feasibility of the schedule, resources provide a benchmark of the program’s total and reporting-period costs.
The process of assigning labor, materials, equipment, and other resources to specific activities within the schedule is known as loading resources. A resource-loaded schedule therefore implies that all required labor and significant materials, equipment, and other costs are assigned to appropriate activities. The schedule should realistically reflect the resources that are needed to do the work and—compared to total available resources—should determine whether all required resources will be available when they are needed.
Loading resources is the first step in allocating the expected available resources to a schedule at the time planned for performing an activity. Representing all resources in an IMS may be difficult for complex programs. But as noted in Best Practice 1, the more complex a program is, the more complex the IMS may become. An analyst must examine resources by time period to determine whether they are adequate. To represent the total and reporting-period costs of the project, all resources (including subcontracts and LOE management resources) must be included. A schedule that has not been reviewed for resource issues is not reliable.