Check whether the team can implement the approved capital program

Two project proposals can each be credible while their combined implementation plan is impossible. They may rely on the same engineer, operating site, test environment or executive approver during the same week. Review the shared resources across the approved program before accepting each project's launch date and financial benefit schedule.

GAO's Schedule Assessment Guide explains that resource availability belongs in a reliable schedule and that resource leveling adjusts activities or assignments to reflect that availability. For a business capital program, the useful application is a dated capacity check. This is a planning method, not a claim that federal scheduling requirements govern the company.

Identify the resource whose availability could delay a project milestone. Use the level of detail at which assignments can actually change. A companywide engineering headcount may conceal that only one person can approve a specialized design. Confirm the specific skill or access needed before treating another employee as interchangeable capacity.

For a hypothetical specialist with 40 weekly hours, ongoing operations use 24 and planned leave uses four. Twelve hours remain for project work. If Project A requires eight hours and Project B another eight that week, the combined request exceeds available project capacity by four hours. An annual staffing budget would not reveal that conflict.

Include preparation, coordination and review work where they consume the same resource. Asking someone to reserve eight delivery hours without allowing for the required checking can understate the assignment. Have the resource owner validate both the workload and the availability assumptions.

First ask whether either activity can move without delaying its project's useful completion. Preserve required dependencies, such as testing after installation. A calendar that places every task in parallel can make the workload look manageable only by ignoring the order in which work must occur.

If moving work changes a completion date, show that consequence. Alternatives may include rescoping an activity, obtaining a qualified additional resource or sequencing the projects. Confirm the lead time and supervision required for extra help. Buying nominal hours does not guarantee that another person can perform the constrained work immediately.

Record the chosen priority and the work displaced by it. Avoid silently moving one project's specialist allocation every time another project declares an emergency. The program needs an owner who can resolve the conflict across project boundaries and communicate the revised commitments.

Recalculate benefit start dates, staged payments, temporary operating costs and any other cash flows affected by the revised sequence. A delayed activity may move both an outflow and an expected benefit, or only one of them. Preserve those differences rather than shifting the entire project by an arbitrary month.

Compare the revised program with the approved version. Show whether the resource decision changes total value, near-term liquidity or only the timing of implementation. A program can remain within its spending envelope while failing to deliver the capacity assumed in the sales plan.

Review the constrained resources when actual work takes longer, leave changes or a new project enters the program. Keep a dated baseline and explain important reassignments. Without a common view, individual project teams can continue planning against the same uncommitted-looking hours.

At the next investment review, compare planned and actual implementation demand. Use the evidence to improve future estimates of specialist hours and project overlap. The finance review is complete when the benefit assumptions depend on a feasible operating schedule, with unresolved resource gaps visible to the people approving the program.