Hi,

today I will explain one specific Case which one of my Blog users have. And I will do it by reproducing this Case step-by-step, using MS PROJECT 2016!

There are three tasks with resources assigned to them:

I will switch to the Detail Gantt View:

Now I will mark Task 1, and Task 3 as 50% completed:

As you can see, Task 3 has 4 days slack (e.g. it is not at the Critical path, and it can finish 4 days latter without affecting Project end date).

Now the question from my Blog reader: “Let’s assume that I decide to delay Task 3 for 2 days  in order to release one or more of its resources  (Tom and/or Nick) and use them on Task 1 to decrease the duration of the Project. How to loan , that is, to re-assign resources from Task 3 to Task 1 just for the period of the delay?“

I should not do anything on Task 3, because I need Tom and Nick to work on this Task. But, as you can see, they are supposed to finish their work on Task 3 at Tuesday, 6.3.2018. so they are available to work on Task 1 at Wednesday, and Thursday (e.g. from 07.03.2018 – 08.03.2018). so I have to put them on that Task in that period. But! Since I want to decrease the duration of the Task 3, I will make that Task – fixed work, because if Tom and nick will help Jack and John on this particular Task, and the Duration will be decreased, in that case they will split the work, and therefore this Task is Fixed Duration.

Now I will assign Tom, and Nick to this Task like this:

and I will get:

As you can see Duration of Task 1 is now 3 and not 4 days. Let me explain how this happens.

I had a Task with 4 days Duration with Jack and John assigned to it. So, the Total work was 4 days * 8 hours per day * 2 Resources = 64 hours. John and Jack have finished half of work, so they spent 32 hours, and 32 hour were remaining. Now we have 4 Resources (Jack, john, Tom and Nick). 32 hours divided by 4 persons is 8 hours per person, and that means that this task will be finished in one day. So Duration was decreased for 1 day, which means it is 3 day instead of 4 days as it was before. And Jack and john will have 24 hours in Total each (16 hours already done + 8 hours to be done = 24 hours), and Tom and Nick will have to work 8 hours each.

It is easy, but be aware of that. Tom and Nick are not over allocated because they are assigned to the Task 1 when they are not supposed to work on any other Tasks. BUT! If, for example, for some reason Task 3 should change from 2 to 3 days, both Tom and nick will become over allocated:

And this is because Tom and Nick are supposed to work on Task 3, and it has extended Duration now, so it is supposed to be finished on Wednesday, 07.03.2018, and they already are supposed to work on Task 1 at that day!

Regards.