Level of Effort (LOE) Activities Tips and Tricks for Successful Scheduling

Introduction

Becoming proficient in the level of effort activities in project planning can make a significant distinction in your career. As people are always concerned about durations and scheduling, those activities provide strategic scheduling So, let us discuss The Level of Effort activities together and learn some helpful tips and tricks for using them efficiently while planning.

What is the Level of Effort (LOE) Activities?

Level-of-effort activities, often abbreviated as (LOE). They include all the activities involved in the project delivery which are the primary tasks necessary to produce the deliverables but do not produce a specific deliverable. Yet, it still utilizes the resources used in the project. However, it requires cost allocation and tracking, such as project management, supervision, support, or maintenance. They are also unique, and their durations depend on their predecessor and successor activities.

Level of Effort (LOE) Activities Purpose

Level Of Effort Activities (LOE) is used in tracking the support tasks that span the project’s multiple phases, such as project management, administrative support, and quality control (QC) so, they provide an accurate representation of the timeline and resources of the non-deliverable tasks

• Project Management: coordination, documentation, schedule tracking, and budget monitoring to facilitate the project execution and alignment with project objectives.
• Quality Control: ensure compliance with project aspects, conducting inspections and taking corrective actions to maintain high quality and to keep up with project requirements.
• Administrative Support: keep the project records up to date, organize meetings, manage communication, and ensure effective communication across all the stakeholders.

As you can see activity “Prepare Reports” has the duration of its predecessor and successor where it starts with Design Phase Start and ends with Final Inspection and Handover.

The Importance of Level of Effort (LOE) Activities in Scheduling

• Resource allocation: Level of Effort (LOE) activities are vital for precise resource allocation as they track the resources needed throughout the lifecycle of the project. So, the project managers focus on the key resources throughout the project’s lifecycle for resource utilization.
• Timeline tracking: Level of Effort (LOE) activities may have unclear ends, but they still contribute to estimating the continuous progress over the project’s timeline by tracking the duration of the related activities which doesn’t reflect directly in the project duration but reflects the effort exerted to support the main tasks.

Tips for Successfully Scheduling Level of Effort (LOE) Activities

• Define Resource Limits: you need to restrict LOE to avoid over-usage. So, try to set boundaries for the resources that can be assigned to ensure that Level of Effort (LOE) activities do not use much more resources than the required quantity and maintain efficiency throughout the project.
• Defining Clear Boundaries: Level of Effort (LOE) activities need to be defined with clear start and finish dates and to be linked to a particular milestone which gives a distinct natural to Level of Effort (LOE) activities, prevents scheduling without identification of particular end date and ensures the project timeline remains clear and focused.
• Proper Linking: Level of Effort (LOE) activities should be correctly linked to related tasks which ensures that they get tracked along with the project progress without skewing with the critical path, Level of Effort (LOE) activities should manage the project phases and making sure they cover the entire project without impacting the timeline calculations.
• Regular Updating: Level of Effort (LOE) activities should be updated regularly to keep a precise representation of the project progress also, to reflect the current status of the project which includes adjustments to the durations, resources allocation, and progress in the project activities.

The Common Pitfalls While Using Level of Effort (LOE) & How to Avoid Them

• Excessive use of LOE: You can’t overuse LOE as it distorts the project schedule, because it increases the use of resources without adding defined objectives. So, to prevent this you have to use Level of effort (LOE) activities moderately and only when it is necessary for the activity or the support of it.
• Incorrect Linking: Level of effort (LOE) activities inappropriate linking causes issues while scheduling like linking Level of effort (LOE) activities to unrelated project phases or milestones and inaccurate critical path calculations so, it should be controlled to avoid any misrepresentation in project dependencies.
• Neglecting Updates: Level of effort (LOE) activities failed to update regularly which led to risking control over the project and getting outdated information so, follow a regular review process to ensure LOE tasks reflect the real-time project progress, to get an accurate timeline and resource tracking over the project.

Advanced Techniques for Monitoring and Controlling (LOE) Activities

• Customizing Reports: You can use Primavera P6 customized reports to monitor Level of effort (LOE) activities effectively by separating them from the critical path activities which helps provide a clear, focused understanding of the resource usage and also ensures that the reports for the milestones tracking remain organized.
• Automating Updates: Primavera P6 uses automation tools such as global changes which allows the project manager to automate updates for Level of effort (LOE) activities by adding specific conditions and parameters so, the Level of effort (LOE) activities can be adjusted in bulk or to be used to simplify the update process and minimize the need for the effort exerted manually.
• Training and Awareness: Ensure that all your team members understand the role and the management of Level of effort (LOE) activities which are necessary for accuracy and consistency in the project control process so, make sure to provide training on Level of effort (LOE) activity setup, use, linking, and updates and highlight its importance in project support and scheduling. Finally, try to implement the best practices in your team.

Conclusion

Level of Effort (LOE) activities managed effectively is necessary for accurate project scheduling, resource allocation, and timeline tracking which can be implemented by adding limits, defining clear boundaries, correctly linking them, and also, by ensuring regular updates project managers will enhance project control and management by avoiding common pitfalls, such as over usage and improper linking which helps maintain accurate project metrics and clear dependencies.