Tony Prensa

Tony Prensa

PMO Thought Leader
Kevin Hurley

Kevin Hurley

Project Management Executive
Bill Dow

Bill Dow

2023 World PMO Influencer of the Year
Andy Jordan

Andy Jordan

PMO Thought Leader
Rachel Hentges

Rachel Hentges

PMO Influencer

What are the most common challenges you’re hearing about project resource management?

Rachel Hentges
PMO Influencer
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The most common challenges I hear about project resource management are capacity planning and resource allocation. These challenges are encouraging as  capacity planning is often an indicator of growing maturity in PMOs. Greater maturity of PMOs often correlates to great success for an organization. Other common challenges that I hear include resource utilization, tracking resource skills and managing contractors. 

 

Tony Prensa
PMO Thought Leader
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Most of the common problems with project resource management are the following:

  • Scarcity of resources: availability of resources can be limited and competition among projects for these resources can lead to allocation difficulties.
  • Lack of visibility: it can be difficult to track and manage the allocation of resources across multiple projects, leading to inefficiencies and potential over-allocation
  • Skills shortages: the right mix of skills and expertise can be difficult to find and retain, leading to delays and increased costs.
  • Changing requirements: As project requirements evolve, it can be difficult to adjust resource allocation in a timely and efficient manner.
  • Budget constraints: Limited budget constraints can make it challenging to allocate  the resources necessary to complete a project on time and within scope.
  • Resource conflicts: allocating resources among multiple projects can result in conflicts, particularly when projects have conflicting priorities.

 

What is driving organizations to improve project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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There are multiple factors at play.  Firstly, discretionary investments – project and similar work vehicles, are becoming more common, consuming a greater percentage of an organization’s total expenditure.  In some organizations discretionary spend is surpassing operating expenditure.  With more money on projects so there are more people on projects and greater potential for bottlenecks, delays, etc.

At the same time, projects are changing more than ever.  Organizational operating environments are evolving due to competitor actions, customer expectations, emerging technologies, and so on.  Projects have to adapt and adjust in response to (and in anticipation of) these evolutions or they will deliver outdated solutions.  All of those changes have potential resource impacts and must be managed effectively, considering not only the immediate changes but also downstream resourcing dependencies.

 

What is the next big thing that project resource management will offer organizations?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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Effective and efficient project resource management is an enabler of organizational agility.  Unless organizations have the ability to quickly move people and skills to where they are needed, even as those needs evolve, the ability of the organization to respond to shifting opportunities and threats will be reduced.  That in turn will hurt the success of projects.

The ability to move people to where they are needed is the single biggest factor in the success or failure of organizational agility.  Organizations are beginning to recognize that and as a result, effective project resource management is increasing in importance.  Without it, performance will suffer.

 

What roadblocks do teams face when trying to get better at project resource management?

Bill Dow
2023 World PMO Influencer of the Year
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The biggest roadblock you see with teams trying to get better at project resource management comes from leaderships lack of importance on this topic. You will have leaders that want to know what resources are working on and trying to get pet projects started and worked on, but those same leaders won’t enforce time tracking. So, we need to get leaders to value the data they are going to get, but also enforce the teams provide the data.

The other roadblock you face with this resource management process is managers not wanting to expose they resource data and what their particular resources are working on. Many managers feel like the resources work for them personally and report to them and therefore they will direct what their resources will do, and don’t always have that global view.

Once you get over these two hurdles you will go a long way in moving your organization forward from a resource management perspective.

 

 

Why is project resource management important?

Rachel Hentges
PMO Influencer
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Project resource management is extremely important for organizations today. Why? Organizations have a greater focus on delivering more and quicker, but without the right resources to do that organizations won’t be able to deliver. Understanding the resources available versus the demand including the skills required for the demand is absolutely crucial to making sure project execution is effective and efficient. Without productive project resource management, organizations find themselves struggling to execute the portfolio of projects in flight because they had no understanding of the resources, not just people, that was required for those projects prior to starting. Project resource management needs to be at the core of organizations looking to deliver a value driven portfolio, without it you’re sure to fall short.

 

Tony Prensa
PMO Thought Leader
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There are several reasons why project resource management is important:

  • Ensures efficient use of resources: By properly allocating and managing resources, projects can ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently, helping to maximize results and minimize waste.
  • Supports project delivery: effective resource management helps to ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget, and that the quality of deliverables is maintained.
  • Minimizes risk: by effectively managing resources, projects can minimize the risk of delays, cost overruns, and other potential issues that can impact the success of projects.

 

How would you recommend getting started with project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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Everyone already does a form of project resource management.  But not many organizations know how well, or how badly, they do it.  For most it’s nothing more than allocating people to work, and in many cases, that’s based on nothing more than the whim of resource owners as to who they want to assign.

To develop a more structured approach that manages resources across all projects, requires firstly an understanding of the resources that are available.  Organizations like to talk in terms of a project resource pool, but that’s a false concept.  There is only one resource pool – the employees of the organization.  If you add more people to projects then you have to take them away from operations and / or support work.

Finding that optimal balance is important, as is knowing what skills are available – too many organizations think that all people in a certain function have the same skills, or at best that they are simply junior / intermediate / senior.  You can’t manage project resources effectively unless you have a more accurate and complete understanding of who’s available and what they can do.

 

What type of organizations benefit from project resource management?

Bill Dow
2023 World PMO Influencer of the Year
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The biggest benefit to project resource management is around visibility and ensuring that your company’s resources are working on the highest priority projects. We see a lot of companies that are struggling to catch-up from COVID and therefore what their resources are working on is extremely important to focus people on what matters the most. Another extremely valuable benefit of resource management is around utilization metrics and how we are using our resources from a utilization perspective. So not only is it about what they are working on but how hard and long are they working on each effort. And/or how many efforts are they working on at one time. Understanding these kinds of data points on our resources are extremely beneficial to any PMO.

 

 

What steps would you recommend to improve project resource management?

Bill Dow
2023 World PMO Influencer of the Year
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The first and most important step to in improving project resource management is the use of timesheet or time tracking for every individual in the organization. Once you have the timesheet data coming in, your next step will be to start compiling the data and start building dashboards and reports out of the data you are seeing. This is no easy task and something that takes months to get right and to start trending. But, getting people entering their time on projects and into admin buckets is a first step into this long and important journey.

 

What is the main goal of project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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There are actually three goals that are equally important – optimizing the ability to deliver work, effectively utilizing the available resources, and retaining enough flexibility to respond with minimal disruption when changes are needed.  Maintaining the balance between the three factors is essential – think of it as the triple constraint of project resource management.

 

What does it look like for organizations that are seeing success with project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
Read Bio >

When organizations are managing their project resources effectively, they are not only able to deliver more projects with fewer delays, they are also better able to move those resources around in response to problems, delays or changes in organizational needs.  Part of the reason for that is the way that resources are utilized, the ability to retain some spare capacity, and the mix of skills within the organization.

But a large part of it is down to the engagement and commitment of the resources themselves.  When project resource management is effective, the people doing the work – the resources, have a more balanced distribution of their work, they better understand what they are doing and why, they know how their work is contributing, they can better plan upcoming assignments, etc.  This leads to greater motivation, a better connection to their employer, and ultimately, better work.

 

What tools/processes can organizations implement to solve for project resource management?

Kevin Hurley
Project Management Executive
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I suggest a single tool with all resources and associated metadata. This includes the ability to:

  • Forecast demand at a role level and allocate to an individual or team
  • See where staff is currently allocated across a set of filtered data points
  • Determine quickly if that allocation is tracking (budget vs. actuals)
  • Easily change allocations on the fly

 

How does project resource management need to be addressed differently for different levels of PMO maturity?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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Even low maturity organizations and PMOs will have to do a form of project resource management – people are assigned to initiatives, bottlenecks or unavailability has to be addressed, etc.  Therefore, the key as a PMO matures is to recognize the need to improve – to overcome the perception that what already exists is good enough.

As PMOs mature they should be looking to manage resources more broadly – it’s not about finding a suitable resource for a given project’s need, it’s about ensuring that every resource is allocated to work that they are capable of doing and that is appropriate.  That can only happen with a broad view of all work.  Maturity should also bring more awareness of the need to maintain ‘spare’ capacity to provide flexibility for the inevitable changes that will occur.

But perhaps the biggest change as PMOs mature is that project resource management must shift to become something that is done with resources, not to them.  Engaging with the people doing the work, individually and collectively, will help build trust and understanding and result in a more capable and flexible resource pool for all work.

 

How should organizations go about implementing proper project resource management practices?

Tony Prensa
PMO Thought Leader
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Effective project resource management is crucial for organizations. In my experience of being a project resource manager for a large company, first I defined roles and responsibilities very clear. Then you want to identify the resources you have for those projects. Resource allocation is very important because you need to put the right resources in the right place without thinking what is going to be their effectiveness in completing those tasks. You should be consistently monitoring how your resources are performing against your portfolio. For me, that was day to day monitoring of how they are progressing and checking on performance to look for optimizations. Communication is important for all key resources. Lastly, you need to ensure they are delivering the right outcomes. That’s what I would say is important for implementing proper project resource management. 

 

What is the role of the PMO in project resource management improvement?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
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The PMO is generally the first function that becomes aware of a problem with project resource management.  Individual teams and project managers may identify a specific issue with a piece of work or an allocation, but it is the PMO that will be able to see whether that is a one-off or the start of something bigger.  Similarly, PMOs are likely the first function to see whether changes in resource management approaches are having the desired effect, or whether further adjustments are needed.

PMOs should also be driving improvements.  Their broader view allows them to identify opportunities to adjust resourcing approaches and models, address areas of the organization where there is excess capacity or where there are insufficient resources, and to feed resource capacity planning when trends emerge that will create permanent shifts in resourcing needs.

 

How can a PPM tool improve overall project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
Read Bio >

An effective PPM platform is essential to optimize project resource management.  It allows for all resources to be managed from a central tool, something that often doesn’t happen when work is being delivered using Agile, waterfall and hybrid.  Either through direct management of resources in the PPM solution, or through integration with other work tracking tools (and likely both), accurate information on actual work, variances between planned and actual assignments, etc. can be tracked.

Combined with powerful reporting and analysis functionality, and integrations with HRIS and similar tools, PPM solutions allow project resource management to become more proactive.  Instead of responding to problems, PMOs and other stakeholders can identify early warning signs and adjust allocations in order to prevent problems from occurring.  The earlier these indicators can be identified, the more flexibility organizations have to find a solution, and the less severe the impact will be.

 

How to get internal buy-in for proper project resource management?

Andy Jordan
PMO Thought Leader
Read Bio >

To get buy-in for improving project resource management, there has to be an understanding that there is a problem in the first place.  That comes from data.  The primary sets of data will be things like resource utilization, employee turnover, etc.  But the problems with these is that they are just numbers, there’s no standard baseline to measure them against.  Instead of focusing on trying to find some generic baseline online (and let’s face it, you can find any number that support whatever argument you want to make), I prefer to focus on secondary sets of data.

That’s things like, average schedule delay – a metric which is most closely aligned with resources; time to adjust – the time between a decision being made to change resourcing on a project and the time that change has been completed; and wasted effort – the amount of time spent by resources on work items that never make it to the final solution.  When these are understood it’s easy to put a real dollar cost on the problem, and that’s going to make it much easier to get buy-in for improvements.

 

What stakeholders should be included in project resource management decisions?

Kevin Hurley
Project Management Executive
Read Bio >

This depends on the organization, but for our organization, this includes direct managers and the team members involved in the resource management decisions. However, depending on the complexity, duration, etc. of the projects this can include a multitude of different departments and stakeholders. 

 

In the last few years, there's been a shift. Projects are no longer focused on this idea of the triple constraint delivery model. PMOs are now starting to think more about benefit, the idea of focusing on outcomes, not outputs. Projects are no longer done because we need to have a new product delivered on a certain date for a fixed budget and with specific features, it's because we expect that product, that service, that efficiency, that system, whatever it might be to improve the quality of the business, to make us more effective, more efficient, to satisfy our customers more. The focus in on achieving business benefits.

That business benefit isn't stable either. We may find that we have to shift what is necessary. We may find that what we thought was going to be required on day one is not actually going to be required later on. Or we may find that what we thought was going to be relevant is no longer relevant at all. So we have to be prepared to adjust and evolve what we're doing. And that concept of change, of evolution is a constant. It's driven from our customers, it's driven from our competitors. And of course, technology is always evolving, and that's causing us to really think about how things may change.

All of this means that projects themselves are changing. Our resources, our teams need to be more autonomous. They need to become change drivers. They need a whole new set of skills and accountabilities. With an increasing focus on business outcomes, not project outcomes, we're not able to just plan a year's worth of projects and then forget about them. We're going to see a lot more adaptive planning, evolutionary planning, not just forced fixed rigid plans.

The Impact of Change on Project Resource Management

So what is the impact of these changes to projects on resource management. We're not just talking about a new way of doing projects, we're talking about a new way of doing business. Organizations don't approve projects because they think it would be a great idea to have lots of projects going on. They approve projects because they want to change that business as a whole. So that's what we have to think about when we're talking about resource management, not the management of projects, the management of the business, the way we do business. That means that project and resource management has to become strategic. It has to be focused on delivering the goals and objectives that those projects are approved to achieve. In doing that, we have to recognize that appointing the right resources to our projects becomes an enabler of success. It's not just about doing a task or completing a piece of work. It's about making sure that our resources are assigned in such a way that we have the best possible chance of achieving the business goals and objectives that we have to deliver against.

To achieve this we need to have the right skills. We need to have the right people, in the right place, focused on the right kind of work, and it's going to be delivered in the right way. That means that project resource management itself has to be integrated, not just integrated across projects, but integrated across the way the business operates. We have to recognize that we've only got one resource pool. It's the employees of the organization. If we add people to projects, they have to come from support or from operations. If we need more people in operations, it's going to come away from support or from projects. Yes, over time, we can add to the number of people we have through recruitment and training and skills development. But that's not a quick fix solution. It takes a while, so we have to make sure that we're managing everything cohesively across the entire organization. All business areas, all functions. And that means that our resources are the most critical part of value delivery. Without the right people, in the right place, at the right time, we're not going to be able to achieve the results that we need to deliver.

5 Concepts for Effective Project and Resource Management

There are five different factors to consider that will impact the effectiveness of your project and resource management.

1. Philosophy and Approach

2. Skills and Accountability

3. Development, Recruitment and Procurement

4. The Operating Environment

5. Leadership Expectations and Roles

Making it Happen

Understanding modern resource management is not going to happen overnight. These are dramatic changes in most of your organizations. This idea of empowering project teams to deliver and managing those resources to deliver on that accountability is something that is dramatic for a lot of organizations. It's only going to succeed if you've got ongoing commitment supported by practical investment. You also need to recognize that you're never done. There is never a single point in time where you can sit back and go, well, that's it. We're done. The organization is going to be operating in an environment that is continuously evolving, and that means that your process has to continually evolve to support those changing business needs. Otherwise, you're not going to succeed.

Support Infrastructure

To suceed you need a strong support infrastruture. An organization that says that they don't have the budget to invest in development of people is never going to succeed. It's the most important critical investment you can make. You have to support that with the right software. A platform like KeyedIn is vitally important to be able to manage this process, to be able to track what's happening in your organizations, to be able to plan effectively. And that software also has to integrate with everything else that's happening in your organization. All organizations are driven by enterprise level software these days. You have to make sure that all of that different software is talking to one another. It's integrated effectively. Only then will you achieve success.

Featured Resource

Doing More With Less: How to manage resources in project management

Discover how to get more value out of your existing resources by measuring your resource effectiveness.

Today’s project teams are very different from even a few years ago. Teams are expected to be more autonomous, driving change as needed to ensure their projects remained aligned with the business outcomes they are expected to deliver. But how do you measure the performance of those teams, both collectively and individually? More importantly, how do you ensure that performance is optimized? This is a challenge facing PMO leaders in these environments and industry expert Andy Jordan presents his approaches in this on-demand webinar.

This webinar explores:

  • Potential performance problems and how to spot them
  • How to get the most out of teams and individuals
  • The role of the organization, PM and team members

Featured Resource

Inhibitors to Effective Project Resource Management

Explore recent research findings that address the challenges of project and resource management

Hear from Randy Mysliviec, Managing Director of the Resource Management Institute, as he discusses the findings from a recent survey that address the challenges plaguing project and resource management.

This webinar explores:

  • Process support for resource management
  • Identifying automation support
  • Current automation deficiencies that need addressing

Featured Resource

The Importance and Benefits of Project Resource Management

Discover key insights and advice on how to improve the overall effectiveness of project and resource management across your organization.

Tear from acknowledged expert in Global Resource Management (GRM) Randy Mysliviec, Managing Director of the Resource Management Institute (RMI) as he discusses the importance of Resource Management, the challenges faced by Project-Based teams as well as the benefits of Just-in-Time Resourcing (JITR).

This webinar explores:

  • The Importance of effective project and resource anagement
  • The benfits of resource coordination in project management
  • How to manage resources to deliver a project using just-in-time-resourcing