Automatic leveling in Microsoft Project: why it disappoints
Automatic leveling promises to remove overloads in one click. It does, but often by pushing back important tasks and the finish date. A targeted trade-off gives better results.
Automatic leveling
Reassembly pushed back 2 weeksRestart: +10 dTargeted trade-off
6 h of reassembly in W48 (26 → 32 h)✓ Restart: unchangedMicrosoft Project can level resources: it shifts tasks so that nobody exceeds their capacity. On paper, it is the ideal answer to overloads. In practice, the result is often surprising.
What leveling does
Leveling pushes tasks back until each resource's workload drops below capacity. It chooses on its own which tasks to shift, according to priority rules that are not always well understood.
Why it disappoints
In our example, Martin has 6 hours too many in week 46. Automatic leveling removes the overload, but by pushing back the whole reassembly by two weeks, and with it the trials and the production restart. The overload is gone; so is the milestone.
A targeted trade-off
The same overload can be handled differently: move only 6 hours of reassembly to week 48, where Martin is at only 26 hours. Reassembly stays on time, and so does the restart. It is a human decision, made while seeing the consequences.
Use leveling with care
- run it on a copy, to compare before accepting;
- look at what moved on the critical path;
- for real overloads, prefer a task-by-task trade-off.