Hour 10. Understanding Resource Scheduling in Microsoft Project 98

In this hour, you learn how Microsoft Project handles resource assignments and how it then schedules work for the resources. Although it takes more time to add resource assignments to your project, there are many benefits to be gained. Resource assignments allow you to do the following:

• Plan work around the vacations and other downtime periods for individual resources

• Examine the workload your project will impose on individual resources

• Identify those resources whose workloads in the project are unrealistically high

• Identify resources that are not fully utilized and might, therefore, substitute for overworked resources on some tasks

• Calculate the effect that changing resource assignments can have on the duration of a task

• Calculate costs for tasks based on the amount of work and the value of the individual resource's time