The Catch-22 of Resource Management

Every organisation needs to know who’s doing what and when – but resource management is a notoriously difficult discipline. But why is this? What makes something so simple as assigning people to work based on need so difficult? Let’s take a look.

When first getting started with resource management, a lot of people think they can just put everything into a system and – with the push of a magic button – see exactly what you need to priories your portfolios and projects, control bottlenecks, and hire specialists at the exact right time.

Reality is a bit different.

While resource management systems collect and analyse your date, the first step to proper resource management is a proper process. A process usually means everyone knows who does what and when. But it’s start even before this. It starts with the why. Why do you need resource management in the first place?

The Why of Resource Management

Whether you're talking to a project manager or a resource owner, people need an incentive to add and maintain resource data. They need to understand what the data is used for and the benefits that follow.

Some organizations want to look at bottlenecks while others need the data to run portfolio simulations. The actual reason matters less than whether people understand, support, and identify with it. Management should be living and breathing the why of resource management and maintain transparency on when and where the data is used.

For that to work, the process must be clear:

• Project Managers must know when requests should be placed.

• Resource Managers must know the deadline for answering them.

• Portfolio Managers must plan when portfolio alignment happens.

The usual why's of resource management are:

• Portfolio prioritisation

• Identifying bottleneck resources

• Project planning

• Hiring specialists in due time

You can have several reasons for wanting to excel at this, as long as the people supplying the data understand why it matters and what's required of them. That means the why must be defined across the different stakeholders – and communicated to them.

The catch-22 of Resource Management

For years, it has been a given that project managers make requests to get resources for a project – these requests are either granted or challenged, but it’s always the project manager that’s the beginning. What’s often omitted from the conversation is how the initial requests are made. Before a project manager can make requests for a project, they themselves need to be requested and allocated. With the allocation of a project manager, the catch-22 arises: The PMO needs an expected resource estimate and budget to make a qualified decision on whether to approve the project idea or not, but the project manager might not even know which resources are needed not to mention how much time each role needs.

We’re estimating and using hours on the project before it’s even started and the relevant people can provide estimates.

How can we estimate a project before it starts? And how can we start a project without knowing how many resources it takes?

The process falls apart before the resource rhythm has even begun. On top of this, most organizations starting to work with resource management must handle this while still balancing several running projects and non-project related work.

Managing the Resourcing Catch-22?

The most important thing, is to not fear the resourcing catch-22. There is a risk that before a project idea is approved, resources are wasted trying [C(1] to qualify the resource budget of the proposed idea. But at the end of the day, investing this time provides valuable information on whether ideas should be approved or not. The goal is to avoid the much larger cost of starting the wrong projects that are then later put on hold or cancelled. That’s the true resource waste.

So, the important thing is to use the time before the project consciously. The initial assignment of project managers should be handled by the PMO (or whoever starts the investigation of the viability of an idea). You could have a set process for what is expected in the analysis phase of an idea or a project and always make that standard request and allocation.

For example, let’s say you set 10 hours for a Project Manager to make the initial analysis of what is needed. Even 10 hours will provide the Project Manager with a lot more insight into what is required. The next step of the process is that, once the Project Manager has been allocated, you have a few select Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) available for analysis to bring you forward. This can be either a set team with dedicated capacity for any analysis phase or ad hoc, depending on the nature of the project idea.

The added benefit here, is that when it’s a conscious part of your process, you avoid firefighting or negatively affecting running projects. By defining a process for when project intake is done, you can plan ahead on when analytical SMEs are needed. They will provide the Project Manager with details on which types of resources are needed, how many hours and when during a project they should be part of it.

If you are working with generic projects, it is also possible to rely more on historical data. The more requests and allocations have been made, the more knowledge is available for creating new requests. This can be used either as input for the Project Manager, as request templates or as both.

No matter the approach, this leaves the PMO with data to support qualified decision making on whether to approve and turn ideas into projects.

Build a Process, improve your estimates

You have a process for everything in your organization – and resource estimation is the same…And yes, the plan will change. No doubt about it. It’s not important to get everything exactly right with the first estimate. That’s why it’s referred to as estimates and budgets. Some data is better than none when deciding between hundreds of ideas.

But having a process for regular activities, is one of the most important things you can do. Now you have a better foundation for estimating resources for your projects – and the long-term data to evaluate and improve your estimations.