MANAGING PROJECT RESOURCES
PRESENTED BY
Toyin Osunlaja
Gozde Kilinc
And
Ercin Sen
OBJECTIVES
After this presentation you will be able to:
• Understand what resources are, and the types
of resources that are typically available
• Appreciate the importance of managing
project resources, and their effect on the
project duration
• Apply project resource management tools and
techniques for managing project time.
What are Resources?
Resources are commonly thought of as sources
of supply or support, such as money, people,
materials, technology, and space. For
information system projects, more specific
resources may include system developers,
project managers, system analysts,
stakeholders, development environments and
information.
Types of Resources
There are two primary types of resources used
in information system projects namely:
• Human Resources
• Capital Resources
Human Resources
Human resources :is personnel pool available to
an organization. The most important
resources in any organization it’s human
resources. Appropriate human resources
assure an organization that the right number
and kind of people are available at the right
time and place so that organizational needs
can be met.
Human Resources (Cont)
• Human Resources include all project
stakeholders, such as customers, project team
members, support staff, project suppliers and
end users. In Information Technology, human
resources consist of :
– System Analysts
– System Developers
– System Programmers..etc.
Human Resource Management
• Human Resource Management: is the
strategic function performed in an
organization that facilitates the most effective
use of people(employees) to achieve
organizational and individual goals.
• The person that manages Human resources is
called Human Resource Manager or
Personnel Manager.
Role of a Human Resource
Manager.
The role of a HRM is:
• Acquiring Human Resources
• Maintaining Human Resources.
•Training and
Development
•Performance
Appraisal
•Rewards and
recognition
•Retention and
Replacement.
•Human resources
planning
•Recruitment
•Selection and
Screening
•Orientation.
Note: You can find more information about Human resources on
our page!!
Capital Resources
• Capital Resources can be defined as the tools
and infrastructure used to produce other
goods and services.
• While the range of assets that can be
considered to be a capital resource is very
broad, it is important to note that not all
assets are capital resources. There are a few
basic qualifications that govern what assets
can properly be referred to as a capital
resource.
Capital Resources(cont.)
• One of the basic criteria for an asset to be
considered a capital resource relates to the
long-term use of the asset in the production
of goods and services. In general a capital
resource will be anticipated to aid in the
creation of products for an extended period of
time.
Capital Resources (cont.)
• The management of capital resources is
particularly important when considering
opportunity costs.
• Opportunity costs are a measure of the
alternative opportunities forgone in the chose
of one good or activity over others.
Managing Resources
• Efficient and effective use of resources
can often make or break a project.
Because resources are limited some hard
to be obtain ,expensive or both.
• The allocation of resources can have a
major influence on project schedules.
• For ex: limited programmers effects time,
cost , quality , risk management.
Implications of Failure
• To correct a delay error, project manager
can assign aditional resources to the task
to get back on schedule – this is known as
crashing, but even this helps cost too
much sometimes.
• When planning a project , managers first
decide on the deliverables of the project
and the activities needed to produce them.
Implications of Failure(cont.)
• The next step is to estimate resources
needed. Combination of resource needs
and availability helps to determine the time
needed for entire project.
• It should be considered during the
initiation, planning, execution, and closeout phases of a project.
Duration vs Effort
• Effort is the actual time spend on working
on an activity.
• Duration is elapsed time between the start
and finish of an activity.
Activity Resource Estimating
• The goal of activity resource estimating , is
to estimate the resources needed for each
activity so they can be deployed in the
most effective manner.
Resource availability
Copmleted project schedule
with durations
Activity sequencing
Resource needs
Managing resources
Resource Estimation Techniques
• One of the primary tools of pj resource
estimating is expert judgement.
• Expert judgement is estimation based on the
experience of one or more experts on the
particular activity or project.
• Another source of hard data is published
estimating data –hard data from specific
activities carried out on previous projects that
may be used to more accurately estimate
resource needs.
Resource Estimation
Techniques(cont.)
• When estimating activity resources, it is
often advisable to conduct some form of
alternatives analysis
• an estimating technicals in which trade ofs
between the time needed the resources
invested and the desired quality of the final
deliverable are examined.
Resource Estimation
Techniques(cont.)
• Also bottom up estimating is a technique
applied when the resource needs of an
activity can not be easily estimated.
• The primary output of the activity resource
estimating process is a detailed listing of
the resource requirements.
Resource Estimation Outputs
• Activity resource requiements is a very
detailed listing of the resource
requirements for the individual activities.
• Resource breakdown structure is a
hierarchical ,graphical representation of all
needed resources ordered by type or
category.
Resource Estimation
Outputs(cont.)
• Resource calender is a specific type of
project calender that is used to track the
hours when certain resources are
available.
• Activity duration estimation is the process
of estimating the duration of the project
activities using both project scope and
resource information.
Duration Estimating Techniques
• Analogous estimating is the estimation of
activities’ durations based upon the duration of
similar activities.
• Parametric estimating is the estimation of
activities’ durations using some type of
mathematical process.
• Three- point estimates- are the estimation of
activities’ durations by averaging the
optimistic,pessimistic and most likely estimates .
Reserve Analysis
• Reserve analysis technique used to
establish contingency reserves during a
project to guard against potential risk.
Schedule development:
Schedule development : is an iterative process
designed to determine start and finish dates
for project activities.
• During the process of schedule development
activity duration estimates combination with
the activity sequences are used to establish
the final project schedule.
Input Schedule Development
Input Schedule Development includes:
• -organizational process assets
• -project scope statement
• - Activity list (which also includes activity)
• - Activity attributes
• -Project network diagrams
• - Resource requirements
• - Resource calendars
• - Activity duration estimates and Risk Register
Organizational Process Assets
• Organizational process assets can be as
simple as a project calendar and easily
calculate working and non working days.
Example: in holidays, personal time off,
overtime or standard working time..
• For this often developed using Microsoft
project or collaboration tools ex: outlook or
share point such as Microsoft project can be
used to record and display resource.
Risk Register
• Risk register specifies how control measures
will be implemented to identify potential risks
to project schedule. For example ,if the risk is
high that a new mainframe computer will not
be installed on time.
Schedule development techniques
• The Schedules Developments Techniques
includes:
• network analysis
• critical path analysis
• schedule compression
• what-if scenario analyze
• critical chain method.
Schedule network analysis
Schedule network analysis: aids to managers in
determining when activities can be performed
given resources and constraints so network
diagrams have to be analyze for any errors in
network.
Critical Path Analysis
• -Critical path analysis: critical path is to
established have quickly a project can be
completed given the tasks, durations and
dependencies in network diagram.
Critical Path (cont.)
• critical path method uses the 2 concepts
• Free float: the time an activity can be delayed
without affecting the immediately following
activity
• Total float: the time an activity can be delayed
without affecting the overall completion of
project
Schedule Compression
• Schedule compression: in schedule
compression use mathematical techniques to
shorten project`s duration
•
These techniques are known as
• Crashing: dedicated extra resources to
particular activity.
• Fast-tracking: This looks at possibility of
performing activities.
What-if Analyses
• What-if analyses: This method is a process of
evaluating alternative strategies by observing
how changes to selected factors affect other
factors so take advantage of logic network by
scenarios.
Critical Chain Method
• Critical chain method: the longest path
through a network diagram, considering both
task dependencies and resource dependencies
and when using the critical chain method, the
critical path is first identifies, independent of
resource availability.
• When using any of these techniques, a
project manager should always monitor
project and resource calendars (times)
Schedule Development Outputs
• Outputs include updates to resources
requirements, project calendar, or the project
management plan and schedule management
plan, supporting details and resource
requirements updates.
The schedule development outputs
process include:
• A preliminary project schedule: Show the
start and finish dates for each activity so it
contains schedule network diagrams.
• Schedule model data: Provide managers with
additional information about resource
requirements and alternative schedules.
• Schedule baseline: Once the schedule has
been finalized and approved, it becomes the
schedule baseline. This baseline, which shows
the set of original start and finish dates.
Schedule Control
• The last process within the Project Time
Management knowledge area is schedule
control. In schedule control, the process of
putting rules in place for controlling changes
to the project schedules and schedule control
process include updates to the schedule
model data, schedule baseline , the activity list
or project management plan.
Conclusion
• We have discussed the fundamentals,
characteristics challenges, related to allocating
resources, estimating activity, and project
durations and developing the schedule with
start and end dates.
• In addition, we also identified types of
resources and how they influence the
estimation of task durations