Resource Management

What is resource management?

Resources are the most important assets of any organization.  They are the drivers of both – value and cost!  As such, it is critical that business leaders must pay specific attention to resource management.

What does resource management cover?

• Resource demand forecast
  Organizations must start resource management with a forecast of resources based on the quantum of work such as customer pipeline, market opportunities, expected growth, etc.
• Skills & Competency analysis
  Understanding the resource demand leads the management teams to now focus on the various types of skills and associated competencies that the organization needs to be able to execute the projects, programs, or operations.
• Resource planning
  Resource planning involves analysis of resources needed for specific projects and their duration.  This also covers understanding of roles, responsibilities, skills, experience, etc.  Planning to hire resources based on business timelines becomes paramount.
• Resource requests
  Managers that are responsible for projects, programs, and operations raise requests for resources based on the duration of their engagements.
• Resource availability analysis
  Before resources are assigned to projects, programs, and operations, Resource Managers analyse the availability of resources using parameters of duration, timelines, skills, and competencies.
• Resource cost analysis
  Along with resource availability analysis, it is important to analyse resources based on their cost profiles.  Doing so ensures that the organization can optimize costs and protect project profitability and competitiveness.
• Resource allocation – soft & hard booking
  After a thorough analysis of resource availability and costs, resource managers would provide resources either as soft-booking or hard-booking.  Soft-booking indicates that the resources are ‘tentatively’ assigned while hard-booking indicates that the resources are ‘confirmed.’
• Resource documentation
  Resource management also includes appropriate documentation of resource-specifics that may include aspects like resource characteristics & traits, strengths, areas of improvement, etc.  Project managers could adjust their leadership styles based on some of these inputs.
• Resource utilization
  An important dimension of resource management is to understand and analyse the extent of resource utilization.  While the ideal utilization is 100%, it is very rare for organizations to achieve this.  Utilization levels are an indication of how well businesses deploy their resources.
• Resource timesheets
  Yet another dimension of resource management is resource timesheets that help managers review both the levels of productivity and efficiency of their resources.  Timesheets indicates the extent of value-adding work that resources are assigned to, as well as their efficiency (comparing planned effort vs. actual effort).  These insights enable businesses review the nature of the work as well as invest in training their resources to improve productivity.
• Resource release
  The last aspect of resource management is the process of releasing resources from specific assignments, projects, or programs.  Once released, resources come back to the organization’s ‘resource pool’ so that they could be assigned to future project requirements.

What are the benefits of resource management?

Resources are the most important assets of any organization.  They are the drivers of both – value and cost!  As such, it is critical that business leaders must pay specific attention to resource management.

Benefits of resource management.

• Helps the senior management assess and map the business demand with resource availability, and trigger hiring request as required. Resource management enables businesses exploit market opportunities that are extremely dependent on highly skilled resources.
• Resource management facilitates the knowledge of the various skills, competencies, and experience that are needed for various projects, programs, and operations. Matching business needs with the right skills is vital to meeting organizational goals and objectives.
• Resource management ensures that resources are planning and are available to business units when they are needed (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). This avoids excess resources and thereby costs.
• Resource management streamlines the process of:
  • Resource requests
  • Resource availability analysis
  • Resource cost analysis
  • Resource allocation
  • Resource documentation
  • Resource release

By streamlining various processes, resource management significantly reduces the ‘time’ involved from resource request to resource allocation, and release.  Doing so, organizations become very efficient when managing resources – both duration as well as costs.

• Resource management enables flexible assignment: soft-booking or hard-booking. Soft-booking indicates that the resources are ‘tentatively’ assigned while hard-booking indicates that the resources are ‘confirmed.’
• Resource management supports appropriate documentation of resource-specifics that may include aspects like resource characteristics & traits, strengths, areas of improvement, etc. Project managers could adjust their leadership styles based on some of these inputs.
• Utilization levels are an indication of how well businesses deploy their resources. An important dimension of resource management is to understand and analyse the extent of resource utilization.  While the ideal utilization is 100%, it is very rare for organizations to achieve this.
• Resource Timesheets indicates the extent of value-adding work that resources are assigned to, as well as their efficiency (comparing planned effort vs. actual effort). These insights enable businesses review the nature of the work as well as invest in training their resources to improve productivity.

What are some best practices for project resource management?

Resources are the most important assets of any organization.  They are the drivers of both – value and cost!  As such, it is critical that business leaders must pay specific attention to resource management.

Best practices for project resource management.

• Create a ‘Resource Pool’ for all project resources.
• Drive visibility of business demand (project pipeline) with resource pool.
• Foster seamless collaboration between business development / sales, project delivery, and resource management.
• Streamline and digitize the process of resource management including resource requests, resource availability analysis, resource cost analysis, resource allocation, resource documentation, and resource release.
• Capture resource-related information such as skills, competencies, experience, costs, strengths, improvement areas, etc.
• Support flexible resource allocation in the form of soft-booking (tentative resource allocation) and hard-booking (confirmed resource allocation).
• During resource planning capture standard holidays as well as planned holidays.
• Assign resources as granularly as feasible (monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, or daily).
• Define guidelines for resources to report their timesheets – for actual effort, overtime effort, weekend effort, etc.
• Analyse resource utilization at project, program, business unit, and organizational levels.
• Ensure timesheets capture the extent of value-adding work that resources are assigned to, as well as their efficiency (comparing planned effort vs. actual effort).
• Define and track relevant metrics for resource management: resource request-to-allocation turnaround time, resource utilization, resource efficiency, resource productivity.
• Implement a robust Project Management Software with capabilities for resource management and timesheets.