TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
What Is Resource Management & Why Is It Important?
Why is effective resource management important?
Resource management as part of project management is all about doing more with
less. Nobody likes waste, especially in business. Resource management is
centered around optimization and efficiency. When you know what you need to
make a project successful, you can effectively understand how to plan
resources in an efficient way.
To some companies, optimum efficiency is so important that they hire someone
solely devoted to resource management; also known as a resource manager. What
does a resource manager do? While project managers are responsible for creating
and assigning tasks to get the project done, resource managers are accountable
for allocating the resources needed to make the project a success.
What are the advantages to resource management?
1. Avoids unforeseen hiccups: By understanding your resources upfront and
planning how to use them,
you can troubleshoot gaps or problems before
they happen.
2. Prevents burnout: Effective resource management allows you to avoid
“overallocation” or “dependency” of resources by gaining insight into
your team’s workload.
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
3. Provides a safety net: Let’s say the project was not successful due to
lack of resources (it happens). Resource planning and management
establishes that you did everything you could with what you had.
4. Builds transparency: Other teams can gain visibility into your team’s
bandwidth, and plan accordingly if your team is at maximum capacity or
available to take on new projects.
5. Measures efficiency: With a high-level understanding of what’s needed to
manage and execute an upcoming project, you can effectively plan and
measure ROI.
Source: Gartner
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
What are some resource management techniques?
1. Resource Allocation
Resource allocation helps you get the most from your available resources.
Based on team members’ skills and capacity, resource allocation is the
process of tackling projects using the resources you have at your disposal in
the most efficient manner possible.
To get a clear view into allocation, project managers will often use resource
allocation reports. These can give anywhere from a high-level view to a
detailed run down of resource availability — helping you avoid schedule
delays and going over budget. The better the reporting capabilities at your
disposal, the more transparency and efficiency you will have over your
projects.
2. Resource Leveling
Another type of resource management is called resource leveling. This
technique aims to discover underused or inefficiently used resources within
the organization and work them to your advantage. An example of resource
leveling is having a content writer who has experience in graphic design help
out the design team by taking on small content tasks that require design
work. If a team member can flex their design skills, the design team won’t
need to hire a freelancer if they suddenly get flooded with design requests
3. Resource Forecasting
Having a resource management plan is critical to optimizing people,
materials, and budget efficiency. Resource forecasting allows you to predict
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
your future resource requirements before a project begins. During the
planning stages of a project, you could consider resource management
software that forecasts the project’s scope, possible constraints, unforeseen
costs, and potential risks.
PART 2 :
How Can You Benefit From Managing Your Resources?
Below are 5 ways in which you benefit once you implement resource management.
It can help with:
1. Maximizing resource efficiency: Resource Utilization
2. Getting a bird's eye view of your project: An overview
3. Preventing miscommunication mishaps: Transparency
4. Predicting the future: Foreseeing and avoiding problems
5. Taking Control
1.Maximizing Resource Efficiency: Resource Utilization
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The easiest way to understand the concept is through a formula:
Resource utilization = Busy time / Available time
Resource utilization is an important metric in understanding whether or not
your resources are working at maximum efficiency.
Why does it matter?
Utilization tracking and planning is the number one thing to consider if you
are planning your team and its resources. It’s especially important if your
resources have concurrent tasks or if they work on multiple projects
simultaneously. It provides you with insight on resource availability and
allows you to find the best match between tasks and your resources.
Utilization can also be extended to planning other (nonhuman) resources. You
can track the downtime or efficiency of a piece of heavy machinery, for example.
This can help with long-term planning, and allow you to nip a problem in the
bud.
How Can You Benefit?


Better utilization means a happier and healthier team, helping to reduce
being overburdened and stressed.
Resources are used to their maximum potential, keeping projects on time
and on budget.
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT


It helps project managers keep an eye on the project, reducing oversights
and double-bookings.
Changes and hiccups can be caught more quickly, preventing problems from
getting worse.
2.Getting a Bird’s-Eye View of Your Project: An Overview
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Contemporary project management can be tricky. Offices in different locations.
A number of ongoing projects. Hundreds of different resources with different
tasks. Without resource management, it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Effective resource management strategies will give you an overview of everyone
and everything. And an overview gives you control over what's going on.
To do so, it might be wise to take a cue from the ancient Romans. Their
concept of dīvide et imperā, which is usually translated to “divide and
conquer,” can help give you an overview. First, divide the plan into
different views. Then, manage resources in each view. Finally, take a peek
into the general resource plan to see if everything's adding up (we
covered planning using views in detail in another blog post).
Congrats! You are now essentially the modern-day Julius Caesar of resource
organization.
Why is it important?
An overview
efficiency.
will
help
you
manage
your
team
better
and
give
you
more
***
Real-Life Example: When Allison Stroebele from Pure Technologies was looking
for a resource management tool, she said,
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
“We needed a better way to schedule a project so that we could see who would be
involved and what equipment would be in use. Especially when teams were coming
from three different offices nationwide and equipment was being shipped from
anywhere in the country.”
Implementing a tool that provided them an overview of all those variables
Allison and the management team at Pure Technologies saw efficiency increases
almost immediately.
“We’re more efficient in our jobs. We can track at least 80 pieces of
equipment now as well, which wasn’t practical previously. As soon as we
started using Ganttic, our tool support people said, ‘This is awesome, we can
track every single piece of equipment. We can keep track of where everything
is in real-time.’ So it gives everybody better visibility on where equipment
and technicians are and what they’re doing.”
Read the full case study of how Pure Technologies is using Ganttic for resource
management.
***
How Can You Benefit?




An overview allows you to track team and project progress, giving everyone
better visibility and keeping you all up-to-date.
You can see how efficient your team and resources are, allowing you to
make better predictions for future projects.
An overview gives you more control, and helps you to conquer all required
tasks.
Having an overview can increase your efficiency, especially when dealing
with dozens of resources spread-out across the country or world.
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
3.Preventing Miscommunication Mishaps: Transparency
With resource management, every (human) resource is able to view their
tasks. Every project manager can see how resources are allocated. This means
planning is transparent both ways.
And transparency is to planning like the weekend is to the workweek. Without
it, it’s just Monday-Friday. And we all know what can happen when it’s all work
and no play. Just ask Jack Torrance.
Why do you need it to be transparent?
There are both practical and theoretical reasons why you’d want your resource
management process to be transparent.
Misunderstandings are often unavoidable. Especially if you are working in an
organization where several project managers are scheduling resources without a
central tool with multi-user access and live updates. Resources will get
overbooked. Task statuses will be changed over and over again.
***
Real-Life Example: Robert Smoleski (Service Delivery Manager at Damovo Global
Services) said "We use Ganttic to schedule resources for a number of projects
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
(customer site visits). It's super easy to define the projects and add
resources. The tool allows you to quickly get things going. Keeping [track of]
the resource schedule information and [the] ability to share it with customers
brought the management of this area to the next level. [The result was] A lot
less email/communication noise."
***
The other reason why you should aim for transparency is the engaged
workforce that comes with it. Namely, transparent organizational communication
has been found to drive employee engagement. Not only that, but a link has been
found between organizational transparency, credibility, and organizational
accountability.
When managers encourage more participative information sharing, employees feel
more engaged with their work and their employer. Employee engagement is also
higher when employees have adequate control over information acquisition and
distribution.
This means that transparency will create a workforce that actually cares about
the work they do and the organization they work in. Likewise it will allow
stakeholders to trust you since they can see what’s going on.
How Do You Benefit?




More transparency helps prevent avoidable miscommunication mishaps
between team members, managers, and clients, keeping everyone up-to-date
and on the same page.
Project transparency is beneficial to everyone involved, increasing
employee engagement and stakeholder trust.
Transparency can reduce email noise, eliminating confusion and freeing up
your inbox’s storage.
A central resource management tool can give an entire organization
transparency, allowing controlled access to every team member.
4. Predicting the Future: Foreseeing and Avoiding Problems
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Crystal balls. Tarot cards. Tea leaves. Resource management? Though it may seem
like the odd one out, resource management can really help you predict the
future. And unlike the others, it can be a lot more reliable.
Managing and planning your resources gives you the ideal opportunity to
understand the actual timeline of a project. The phases, the tasks that need to
get done, and the resources that are required to make miracles happen. Planning
lets you account for all of this, before they even occur.
Why is it important?
Resource planning gives you an idea of where your resources are located and
what they are doing. Booked machines, client meetings, incoming shipments,
everything is planned and accounted for. Allowing project managers to quickly
and easily check the availability and utilization of a resource. This is helpful
if a plan changes quickly and alternative arrangements need to be made.
How Do You Benefit?



Resource planning lets you understand the actual project timeline,
helping with long-term planning and making more accurate forecasts.
Planning gives you a better idea of what your resources are doing and
where they are located, making it easier to sort out unexpected problems.
Bottlenecks can be ironed-out before they occur, and changes can be made
well in advance, allowing you to focus on the current tasks on hand. This
means a more efficient use of your time and less stress.
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
5. Taking Control: Right Decisions
resAs a project manager, you not only need to see what’s going on with your
various projects, but you also need to have control about what's going on. Being
able to track your resources’ progress is essential. But without the correct
tools to help you, you can’t actually take control and manage what needs to get
done.
Why is it important?
Planning out and managing your resources gives you a clear understanding of who
is doing what, where, and how long before they finish. You can see who has more
downtime and who can be reallocated to help out on other tasks. Are there enough
people, machinery, and other resources to finish a task? Or do you need to hire
someone else? Having all this info gives you a feeling that you have a control
over a project.
Resource management is a continuous activity. But when you plan it out, you are
better able to have a bigger picture of the entire process and even further.
You can measure the performance of your resources, which makes for more accurate
forecasting. This in turn can help you choose the best direction for your
company. And instead of running into problems, you can see what lucrative
opportunities lay beyond the horizon.
Having control means you’re the captain of your ship. The projects and tasks
are for you to manage, not the other way around. Use the resource management
tools - they can let you sleep at evenings.
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020
TOPIC 5: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
How Do You Benefit?




Resource planning tells you where your resources are and what they are
doing, giving you not only an overview, but control of the whole process.
This ensures that nothing is forgotten and issues can be solved ahead of
time.
Control allows you to measure resource performance, and helps you make
the best choices for your company. In turn, this can help grow and expand
your business.
Being in control lets you stay calm in times of emergencies.
There are resource management tools made specifically for this purpose,
which can take the pressure off of the project manager and help you
succeed. Find the best one for your needs!
References:
https://www.wrike.com/blog/what-is-resource-management/
https://www.ganttic.com/blog/why-is-resource-management-important
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/KarnaBahadurChongban/ppt-presentationresource-mgmt
College of Business Management and Accountancy 2020