Resource Loading & Leveling Flashcards
7 cards from real CST practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Resource Loading & Leveling flashcards as text
What is the purpose of a 'resource calendar' in a resource-loaded schedule?
Answer: To define when each resource is available, including vacations and holidays
A resource calendar defines a resource's availability—working days, holidays, part-time hours—used to constrain scheduling.
Which heuristic, often used in manual resource leveling, assigns available resources to activities in order from earliest start date to latest?
Answer: Serial scheduling heuristic
The serial scheduling heuristic processes activities one at a time in a defined order (e.g., earliest start) and assigns resources until exhausted.
After resource leveling, a project manager wants to verify that no resource exceeds 100% allocation in any given week. Which tool best supports this verification?
Answer: Resource histogram by time period
A time-period resource histogram displays utilization week by week, making it easy to spot any bars exceeding the 100% line.
What is the consequence of over-leveling (over-smoothing) resources on a project schedule?
Answer: Activities are unnecessarily delayed, adding unneeded schedule padding
Excessive leveling delays activities beyond what is needed to resolve conflicts, artificially inflating project duration.
In the context of resource loading, what does 'lag' between activities allow in terms of resource management?
Answer: It creates a gap that can reduce the demand overlap between predecessor and successor
Lag creates a time gap between activities, reducing simultaneous demand on shared resources by offsetting their start times.
A resource is assigned to three parallel activities each requiring 4 hours/day. The resource's capacity is 8 hours/day. What is the most appropriate corrective action?
Answer: Sequence at least one activity to a different time period
Shifting one activity to a non-overlapping period reduces daily demand from 12 to 8 hours, matching available capacity.
Which CST exam concept refers to the maximum amount of resources required at any single point in time across a project?
Answer: Peak resource demand
Peak resource demand is the highest simultaneous resource requirement at any point in the project, shown as the tallest bar on a histogram.