Please read Chapter 8 Pg-No. 279 & 281 carefully and then give your answers on the basis of your understanding.

What do you think would have happened if the Washington Forest Service did not assess the impact of resources on their two-year plan?

be small or when there is no alternative for resolving the resource problem. Computer software offers the splitting option for each activity; use it sparingly. page 278 8.7 Benefits of Scheduling Resources It is important to remember that if resources are truly limited and activity time estimates are accurate, the resource-constrained schedule will materialize as the project is implemented not the time-constrained schedule! Therefore, failure to schedule limited resources can lead to serious problems for a project manager. The benefit of creating this schedule before the project begins leaves time for considering reasonable alternatives. If the scheduled delay is unacceptable or the risk of being delayed too high, the assumption of being resource constrained can be reassessed. Cost-time trade-offs can be considered. In some cases priorities. may be changed. See Snapshot from Practice 8.3: U.S. Forest Service Resource Shortage. Resource schedules provide the information needed to prepare time- phased work package budgets with dates. Once established, they provide a quick means for a project manager to gauge the impact of unforeseen events such as turnover, equipment breakdowns, or transfer of project personnel. Resource schedules also allow project managers to assess how much flexibility they have over certain resources. This is useful when they receive requests from other managers to borrow or share resources. Honoring such requests creates goodwill and an "IOU" that can be cashed in during a time of need. SNAPSHOT FROM PRACTICE 8.3 U.S. Forest Service Resource Shortage A major segment of work in managing U.S. Forest Service (USFS) forests is selling mature timber to logging companies that harvest the timber under contract conditions monitored by the service. The proceeds are returned to the federal government. The budget allocated to each forest depends on the two-year plan submitted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Olympic Forest headquarters in Olympia, Washington, was developing a two-year plan as a basis for funding. All of the districts in the forest submitted their timber sale projects (numbering more than 50) to headquarters, where they were compiled and aggregated into a project plan for the whole forest. The first computer run was reviewed by a small group of senior managers to determine if the plan was reasonable and "doable." Management was pleased and relieved to note all projects appeared to be doable in the two-year time frame until a question was raised concerning the computer printout. "Why are all the columns in these projects labeled 'RESOURCE blank?" The response from an engineer was "We don't use that part of the program. The discussion that ensued recognized the importance of resources in completing the two-year plan and ended with a request to try the program with resources included." The new output was startling. The two-year program turned into a three-and-a-half-year plan because of the shortage of specific labor skills such as road engineer and environmental impact specialist. Analysis showed that adding only three skilled people would allow the two-year plan to be completed on time. In addition, further analysis showed hiring only a few more skilled people, beyond the three, would allow an extra year of projects to also be compressed into the two-year plan. This would result in additional revenue of more than $3 million. The Department of Agriculture quickly approved the requested extra dollars for additional staff to generate the extra revenue