If you are asking yourself what is resource management, you’re in an absolutely good place. In managing a project, you don’t only manage the tasks it takes to deliver it. How you plan, organize, and manage your team has a significant impact on your project’s success. No wonder following the best practices of resource management can make a real difference in the workplace.
What will you get with this article:
Because we’d like to shed a bright light on the essence of project resource management we need to introduce a little piece of academic conversation aimed at enlightening the terms related to our main topic.
But here is also another reason for these quibbles. Without having a clear understanding of the main elements and factors making up project resource management anyone’s decisions are exposed to a greater risk of error. Errors related to the processes within the project or even within the selection of software for increasing managing project resources.
Having a big picture will make up you won’t get lost in the maze of concepts and unclear connections between knowledge areas that fundamentally support project management.
IT project management, marketing project management, project management in the real estate industry, or creative agency project management – however, or whatever industry you’ll insert before the “project management” word, the phases, processes, and steps are mostly the same. But, before you will get to know about it, a little introduction has to be made.
As we know, people learn faster when seeing pictures, or examples – something can be caught by senses, with eyes in the first place. So – before being exposed to numerous questions related to the meaning of each term in the presented definitions below – let’s begin with imaginative and easily adaptable examples belonging to the family of project management.
Starting from less complex and taking less time:
Concluding, whenever you think “project” you have to have a picture of how many people, skills, subcontractors, tools, and arrangements contain the project. How many resources, dependencies, little steps, and a million tasks, and schedules are involved to complete each illustration of the project?
Continuing our subject, time to dig into definitions. So let’s begin with something easier to adopt. Let’s imagine you talk to the kid and want to describe to him what’s the meaning of project management. In a context like this one, you could easily accord to the definition from projectmanager.com:
Project management is the discipline of planning, executing and completing projects.
The abovementioned understanding sees project management as a process and breaks it down into 3 steps. Of course, each of them contains a few other groups of elements, processes, tasks, and – always underestimate, always unpredictable – challenges related to each of them.
But, it is a very simplified version of the project management life cycle – because this is how the specialists name the process. The most popular is the version with 5 phases. Developed by the PMI include conception and initiation, planning, execution, performance/monitoring, and project closure.
But this definition doesn’t raise the topic of who. To say it specifically – a human being, a specialist and his competencies, experience, or maturity.
According to the same PMI that we often mention here, they offered a definition that highlights something behind each project. It’s about the people, from project managers to project contractors and the workforce in the project involved. People who schedule but also who are selected to participate at some stage of the project and assigned to tasks.
Paraphrasing their words, project management is about using specific knowledge, talents, skills, devices, tools, methods, processes, and techniques to deliver something of “value to people”.
As we see, here is more about competencies (soft competencies as well), about having information and the ability to implement that knowledge. Or – to use a phrase taken from, let’s say, a motivational library – turn thinking into action and get things done.
In the summary of this chapter, we use the Association for Project Management institute proposition. It’s not the most painless one to remember, or even to understand project management definition, but after reading what’s above, it can be easy to imagine what the author had in the mind. But, here is something we do not agree with. Nevertheless:
Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverables that are constrained to a finite timescale and budget.
A few words of comments. We see some similarities with the propositions suggested earlier, so it’s not to be said anything more about it. What’s new are the limited time and budget, and acceptance criteria. Starting from the last one, your client usually has some expectations of what he wants to see at the finish, how should it works, and how should it help solve his challenges. He can’t accept the result of your work. And then what?
But it’s hard to make a contradiction – acceptance criteria can make a project last longer than assumed. But, we can’t agree with the statement that suggests the budget and time are the conditions that make leading the project qualified as project management.
Finite timescale and budget are what split project management from just management [Screen above = multiple tasks’ time tracking overview via project resource management system]
Anyone knows the last two aspects that are to be taken into account by any chairman, boss, or decision-maker doing any project are the aforementioned time and budget – because they aren’t unlimited. But the only return of investment, the expected return in the expected amount of time has the biggest impact on business decisions than any other factor. And from many businesses’ point of view, the fundamental part of the business is money. Because, if you have enough money, you don’t have to make hasty decisions and wait for what competitors will do fighting for the next clients.
If we agree with the last statement, we cannot agree with the statement that project management is something else than “management” indicating the key factor that distinguishes both is that project management has this final deliverable and a finite timespan, unlike management which is an ongoing process.
We’re not sure is it working only that way. Does the business goal is to have many clients, especially amount of clients that allow the business to run? Does the business need ongoing communication with potential clients? Does the marketing department implement in the required time smaller tasks or bigger projects to make better communication, the number of website visitors, and the number of leads? Do the people responsible for marketing and communication don’t have to once a month or a few times the year informing about the results?
Do you understand the importance of project resource management now?
You’ve got a lot about project management, so you don’t have to be informed more. We also already know where always to find among 5 phases of the project management lifecycle place for project resource management.
It’s for the shining star of our investigation – project resource management. We already know what a project means. So, what resources are?
Thanks to the APM Body of Knowledge, we know resources are understood large – as people (and their skills), but also as money, machinery, materials, technology, and anything else needed to deliver the expected result. It also can be told a resource is everything that is demanded to complete a task or project.
Of course, from the perspective of many businesses, especially services-oriented companies, managing resources is all about people. People and their skills.
For them, project resource management is:
(...) acquiring, allocating and managing the resources, such as individuals and their skills, finances, technology, materials, machinery and natural resources required for a project. Resource management ensures that internal and external resources are used effectively on time and to budget.
It’s not quite the easiest definition ever made, because of its ambiguous terms thus it could be pretty fine for an academic dissertation. But not on this blog. On Projectmanager.com we get to know in a straightforward way. Without talking about quality, demands, and expectations that come from stakeholders, or even time and budget.
Resource management is the process of planning, scheduling and allocating resources to complete a project.
Good resource management results in the right resources being available at the right time for the right work. And the role of the resource manager is to – paraphrasing the APM words – identify the resources required (employees with relevant skills and experience) to deliver the work, as part of planning, and determine when the resources will be needed, through scheduling.
As we see, generally speaking, the definitions – excluding the form of how they’re presented – are similar. If we try to compare project resource management definitions we will be more enlighted by seeing what they all together have in common. Well:
To sum up the discussion so far, project resource management is – without any doubt – the most demanding and challenging element in the project management process. Its role – generally speaking – comes down to planning, organizing, controlling, and measuring people’s work.
Project resource management is—to put it simply—making the most efficient use of finite resources given at your disposal. Or – to say it how things really going on – use the maximum available resources – previously identified and vetted for appropriate skills – to complete a project in an expected time with an expected result.
To avoid too long an introduction, you have to be aware that the 3 above-mentioned terms for some project managers and academic representatives are understood as separate and each of them has its own meaning.
But for some people resource scheduling and resource allocation mean the same, and both are a part of something bigger – resource management. But among many sources about our subject, also can be found definitions suggest equating “resource management” and “resource scheduling” (take a look at Wikipedia’s definition). So, it’s time for a few words of explanation.
We agree with Saviom company – our competitor in the market of project resource management systems – that:
Resource allocation, also known as resource scheduling, recognizes and assigns resources for a specific period to various activities
In the blink of an eye can be seen that this definition could also be treated as a resource management definition as well. Isn’t it? Nevertheless, in this article, we try to maintain the order according to which project resource management and its whole process contain scheduling and allocation as its parts.
We could continue this discourse on defining nuances, but that’s not the goal. The purpose of this chapter is to provide you with a broader picture of the terminological considerations and challenges related to the term of interest.
A. Estimated vs. actual hours worked by the employee
Does the project is flowing with the plan – that’s an ongoing question in every project manager’s head. The comparison of an assumed estimated value (such as hours that has to be spent on a task by the employee) with the actual tracked hours is the way to check the progress. Thanks to this method you will be able to spot early signs of project delays and make some changes during the current project or future.
B. Estimated vs. actual cost per team member (resource cost variance)
Costs generated by the work of a team are another factor that forces project leaders to think intensively. Good project resource management systems allow you to assign hourly or even daily rates to each of the team members and makeup project cost tracking reports based on them and your team’s timesheets.
C. Billable vs. non-billable hours
The split between non-billable and billable hours in projects helps with tracking company profitability. Check how many hours your team members spend on activities such as meetings, administrative tasks, etc.
D. Resource utilization / Employee utilization
Resource utilization is one of the most important performance KPIs tracked in companies. After all, you don’t want your team to be overbooked or overworked. And – in otherwise – nobody should be without assignments. There are 2 ways to calculate resource utilization, and you should use them at two different phases of the project life cycle.
A. Lack of easy access to competencies of resources and resource pool
The bigger number of projects, the bigger number of employees involved. The bigger number of employees, the harder is quickly finding appropriate ones to assign to a project. The role of a sufficient project resource planning system is to help with finding resources with expected skills, maturity, experience, competencies, location, cost profile, time zone, etc.
B. Missing resource’s performance overview
Measuring productivity is still the main challenge in companies – in the new ones and with a long tradition. The work time analysis – both productive and non-productive, employee’s time tracking spent on particular tasks is the way that helps with work optimization and time and budget forecasting.
C. Scheduling conflicts
Scheduling conflicts aren’t something rare even in a very well-organized company. Especially in the software houses, advertising agencies, and other services-oriented companies where work even just a few project managers are looking for appropriate resources. The project resource management system warns about booking overlaps and – from the employee’s perspective – overbooking.
D. Inadequate resource capacity planning
Planning the resource capacity can skip last-minute delays. The capacity defines the resources available for taking up a specific task.
If you’ve delivered a project on time and within budget, you’re on the right track. A lot of organizations fail to outline resource capacity in the initial project phase; as a result, it’s difficult to plan resource allocation.
Resource capacity can be analyzed with resource tracking. Thanks to some all-purpose Resource Management with project management tools that can ease this challenge.
Depending on your team’s size, company profile, and the project management methodology you follow, you can choose from a variety of resource management tools. In fact, in the beginning, you can even use a simple spreadsheet to do so (although I would advise you otherwise, as spreadsheets may become ineffective as your business grows).
Summarizing this chapter, ideally, a proper resource management tool should consist of a schedule (e.g., in the form of a simple resource calendar view), your resources’ availability, their current bookings, and timesheets.
Custom categories or tags are also helpful, as they make it easier to navigate to the resources you need at the moment, filter the view by specific roles or projects, etc.
Finally, you may want to choose a tool with an integrated reports section, where you can easily use the data you collect to analyze the team’s workload, project budgets, or the ROI for the company.
The more comprehensive (yet clear) the view is, the better insights you can draw from it.
From betterteam.com – the HR industry company:
Resource managers assist project managers with human resources planning and staff allocation. They determine a company’s capacity to meet the staffing requirement of projects, assign personnel to projects, and hire new employees. They may also manage payrolls and train staff.
For better visualization of this chapter’s starring role – resource planner – let’s use some comparison. The comparison is based on the simplified difference between resource managers and project managers. So, Project Managers operate on a project level – they coordinate a group of projects (mostly, connected to each other) or just a project. They are responsible for having it completed by the project team. While Resource Managers operate on a company level. Selecting, allocating, and matching appropriately skilled resources to multiple projects.
Association for Project Managers by the mouth of Kirsten Bird proposes such meaning of our star.
The project professional must identify the resources required to deliver the work, as part of planning, and determine when the resources will be required, through scheduling.
What we’d like to emphasize extremely is the first part when it says “Must identify...”. Why it’s so important? First of all, but not the most important, because it’s the starting point. While talking about resource management aspects, mostly highlights scheduling of its core. Here we see what is the fundament of good scheduling – a soft skills, especially a great eye and feeling with people.
Now it’s time for the Resource Manager’s responsibilities:
Areas of knowledge given by Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).
Taking into account the skills and availability of your employees, you should have a list of employees ready to assign to a project. With a list of employees already selected to join your project, you can book them in the tool of your choosing.
As resource allocation is the process of making the most of the resources you have, you should then track their performance and utilization. This aspect of human resources management will help you avoid under or overutilization and prevent employee burnout.
Other benefits of resource allocation, include:
You keep an eye on how much work is being done by your human, technical, mechanical and other resources, while also keeping an eye on the hours they put in. You will be especially concerned with resources that are “under-utilized” or “over-utilized” (overallocation).
If you’re able to adjust the project schedule to meet the project’s deadline, you can use resource-leveling. To modify a schedule using resource leveling, divide or merge activities according to the resources’ availability, so there are no under- or overutilized project team members.
A resource manager who does his job well and who knows his numbers will be able to predict, with reasonable confidence, how much work his team can do over a period of time. This enables the team and the company to accurately prepare and plan for upcoming commitments.
Now that you know what resource management is, you need to form a plan. And not just any plan—to efficiently manage resources in multiple projects, you need to have a high-level plan for each project.
High-level planning is a project manager’s view of its:
In project resource management, a high-level plan helps to answer the question: “What roles do I need to successfully deliver a project on time and within budget?”
In creating a high-level plan, you don’t have to build a detailed list of all tasks, yet. Instead, you need to include:
Having a high-level plan, you get a better overview of your resources’ capacity and the project scope.
With a high-level plan, you have a big picture of what it takes to deliver a project. We’ve also already said that it helps you to understand what roles you need to deliver it. But how exactly do you identify these roles before assigning them to this new project?
According to the standard prepared by the internationally known Project Management Institute, PMBOK®, resource planning is “determining what resources (people, equipment, materials, etc.) and what quantities of each should be used to perform project activities.”
Using a work breakdown structure, estimated duration, or historical data, you can determine:
Once you come up with a list of employees you may book without causing scheduling conflicts, you’re ready to allocate them to your project.
Having high-level plans for all projects you run and an idea of how to use your resources at the moment, you know your capacity and the company’s pipeline.
Now, when your company wins new projects, you can quickly answer the following questions:
Project onboarding is an important part of effective resource management. Introduce your team members to the goals, objectives, and deliverables of the project they will work on. Such a strategy will increase project transparency and help you build trust with your team as a PM.
This part of the process consists of 4 steps:
To align the project’s timeline, available resources, and scope, use resource scheduling. It’s crucial as it tells you when exactly you will need given resources so that you can plan your bookings accordingly. Remember to keep an eye on resource availability when assigning people to projects.
There are several project scheduling techniques you may use:
The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a technique used to determine the longest possible time the project will take to finish. By listing all the tasks and categorizing them as critical and floating, you can calculate the timeline and mark dependencies between the tasks.
To create a task flow using the CPM method, you need:
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a method similar to CPM, but it uses a weighted average duration rather than estimates to calculate possible timeframes.
Using PERT, you will also have to create a list of tasks with dependencies between them, including milestones and estimated duration for each task. Based on that information, you can estimate your project’s timeline on three levels of confidence:
Fast-tracking is a simple scheduling technique used by project managers to determine which tasks can be handled simultaneously. Knowing the project task dependencies between them, you know which jobs require other assignments to be done beforehand. Similarly, you can list tasks that can, at least partially, overlap so that you can speed up the project’s delivery.
If using fast-tracking hasn’t resulted in saving the desired amount of time, you can use the crashing technique. It comes with a cost, though, as you need to add time in order to speed up the project. The way to do so is, e.g., to add paid overtime–you end up with a higher project’s cost but are still able to fit within the deadline.
Based on the data you collect by implementing resource management, like employee booked time, time entries, and availability, you can measure their performance and other business metrics.
Measure resource utilization by following a simple formula:
Resource utilization = Busy time / Available time
Whether you use a spreadsheet or a resource management tool, you can use it to compare bookings with availability. The resulting metric shows you if you use your employees’ time efficiently, or if they are over-or underutilized.
Similarly, you can use this metric to compare billable time with employees’ recorded work time. This way, you can determine whether you make productive use of your resources.
When you collect bookings and timesheets data, you can calculate your project’s budget, too. You can even use them to track the budget throughout the project and see if you stay within the estimated cost or not.
For example, you can compare bookings with timesheets to see whether recorded work time equals your estimates or not. Then, knowing your employees’ hourly rates, you can calculate the actual cost of the time they spent on the project to determine the actual budget.
Again, you can use a spreadsheet to do so, bo it will be way more convenient to use a resource management tool with reporting features.
Project resource management saves money. Although it may seem complicated at a glance, is not really that hard once you get a grasp of it. Make it a part of your team’s project management process and always utilize the right resources and the right time.
You can save yourself a lot of hustle by implementing a resource management system. Teamdeck is an example of such a 项目资源管理软件, combining resource scheduling, time tracking, leave management, and custom reports. Using this tool, you can easily add bookings, record time entries, manage and adjust the calendar and calculate metrics of your choosing on top of that data.
Want to be an efficient resource manager? Looking for free resources for project managers? Do you want to know why companies choose Teamdeck as their mail solution for project resource management? Still don’t know why project resource management is important?
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