Nowadays, in the organizational paradigm, companies are under a lot of stress to deliver the most innovative and technologically enhanced services and products at a minimal cost. As a result of this increasingly pressurized environment, resources are expected to be fully utilized to accomplish high-priority projects at any particular time.
Of course, whenever we use the term: resources in the organizational paradigm, it could mean a lot of different entities that make up the company as a whole experience. However, in this article, we will keep our focus on the most important resource you have at your disposal, and that is your team members.
Oftentimes, we see that when these resources are not managed properly, it can be very damaging for the company. These negative consequences that arise from inadequate resource management are delays in milestone delivery, poor productivity, inadequate quality of products, missed opportunities and low morale.
So, how can we actually improve the process of resource management? Your team is giving everything they’ve got but how can you actually increase their productivity even more?
Well, when it comes to proper resource management, it doesn’t just mean that we pool in all of our resources just for the most prioritized projects. It means that all of your resources are strategically assigned to their respective projects according to their unique skill sets.
Also, the companies need to keep in mind that resources are not as disposable as some robots created in a lab. They can be pushed to the limit but if the resources are exhausted all of the time, no work is going to be completed.
The solution to this scenario is that the companies are required to embark on projects that their resources can properly achieve and not those projects that will exhaust them because they’ll have to learn the processes required to complete those projects that can cost the company heavily just as they would suffer when hiring new resources for specific projects.
But before delving into resource management practices and software, let’s go through what resource management is?
What is Resource Management?
Resource management is the practice of successfully planning, scheduling, and allocating various types of resources such as people, money, time, and technology. The aim is to make the best use of these limited resources so that project timelines and budgets align with the project plan. Without proper resource management, project success is impossible to attain.
Managing your team members without a solid strategy or tool may be a nightmare. That is probably why you are here. You should be aware that there is a better way to manage your resources and team.
What are the Capabilities and Benefits of an effective Resource Management Software?
We understand how complex and intimidating resource management can be. According to reports, nearly half of the organizations around the world are stuck in silos.
With so many different processes to manage your organizational resources, you’ll expect the software that performs the actual work to be varied as well.
The following are the three main capabilities that every resource management software needs to have in today’s world.
- Resource Utilization
- Progress and Time Tracking
- Capacity and Demand Management
Check out the best resource management software:
The 10 Best Resource Management Software of 2024
Using these capabilities, the software gives you the following benefits that help in managing your resources.
- Gain a more realistic overview of the demand and capacity that is needed to be delivered by the company
- The software manages and prioritizes all of your work requests and you can also set the required expectations along with their respective stakeholders
- Determine what resources are going to be available at what time
- Spot problems and scope creep from a mile away
- Connect all of the strategic activities that have been planned to the relevant executioners
- Improve communication between the project and resource management with the relevant team members
8 Best Practices for Resource Management
1. Agreeing on a Universal Approach to Prioritize All of the Work among Shared Resources
- The project handlers are required to create an efficient evaluation process that helps in decision-making rather than suffer from the “squeaky wheel” problem
- They need to monitor all of the work that was unplanned and has the potential to overcrowd your capacity and delay your projects
- Companies always need to keep in mind that when you overcrowd your resources, there is always a real possibility that there would be quality problems in the final product and an immense reduction in overall throughput
2. Understanding the Importance of the Resources and Put more Focus on Them
- To do this, you can always employ the 80/20 rule that lets you weed out the 20% of resources that generate about 80% of the effects in the project and are the most important assets you have at your disposal
- The companies need to put more focus on them and plan their activities around the schedule of these resources to avoid any potential bottlenecks in the future
3. Envelop All of the Different Ways across the Organization and the Resources
- When you have different types of work that are being worked on various types of teams within the same organization, all of them can work according to a unique methodology
- If that’s the case then ensure that all of the processes that you have incorporated and all of the tools to perform those processes, align with each other to create efficiencies
4. Keep in mind that Resource Management is a Long Ongoing Process
- In large organizations, there are bound to be some unexpected events that occur due to some spontaneous changes in the project scope
- It’s up to you and the team to work together to resolve these issues based on your priorities
5. Properly Plan the Work that is to be Done
- While planning the project scope and activities, you need to attach all of the traditional tasks with the start and end dates along with their complete duration to formally define all of the work and less formal lists for the tasks that are not your top priority
- Use automated processes wherever possible to reduce the need for administration
6. Efficiently Manage the Resource Assignments
- If your company is just starting out with its resource management activities, use high-level buckets at the project as a starting point
- Nothing is expected to remain the same in the organizational paradigm and that’s why you need to make sure that your usage decisions regarding resource management are able to evolve as needs and requirements change over time
7. Report Time
- Most of the time, different groups around the organizations are often reluctant to share their timesheets and it’s their job to keep this process as simple as possible
- You can also make this process easier by tracking the time in the resource management tool that your resources use
8. Keep your Resources happy in order to make them more Productive
- The most important practice to manage your resources is to keep them happy and satisfied with the work that they do because most of the time, turnovers can cause an extraordinary loss in capacity and productivity
- You should also offer them training programs so that they are well-versed in the work that they do, and you don’t have to hire new resources every time a new type of project falls in your lap.
9. Use assignment categories that are suitable for your business size
- Unnamed, role-based resources should be used for long-term planning or when the precise resource is unknown ahead of time.
- This resource management practice can help with long-term planning and prioritizing.
- When precise information is available, hard-book named resources can be used in the near term.
10. Take account of non-project time
- One of the best resource management practices is to prepare for the long and near term, be sure to account for administrative time, paid time off, and so on
- Do not overlook unplanned project activities; build a method to record this time or you will lose track of this capacity loss
- Recognize that there will be a natural loss of time from ordinary, everyday work such as administrative responsibilities
What are the Rewards of Efficient Resource Management?
Following the upper mentioned practices and using the perfect resource management software can bring an amazing change in your whole resource management policies. All of these changes will result in increased productivity and higher satisfaction levels among the team members and the teams themselves.
Apart from that, here are 4 different rewards you can achieve as a result of good resource management:
- You will be able to keep all of your projects on time, on budget, and overall on track
- You will be able to appoint all of the right people to all of the right projects
- You will be able to align all of your resources to the ever-changing market and the demands of the management
- You will be able to centralize resource capacity and optimize the project portfolio to deliver your company’s strategic projects/initiatives
FAQ’s
1. What is effective Resource Management?
Planning, scheduling, and allocating various types of resources like people, money, time, and technology are all examples of effective resource management.
2. What are some best resource management practices?
In the article above, we have compiled the top 10 resource management practices. From prioritizing tasks to estimating non-project time, the process should be transparent
3. What is the importance of Resource management?
Resource management gives managers on-demand, real-time visibility over people and other resources, giving them better control over delivery. When resource management is done right, it may help your company save money, boost efficiency, and produce more.
Conclusion
These are some of the best resource management practices that enable PMOs to optimize their portfolios, balance capacity and demand, integrate plans and resources into projects, and manage the underlying financials. Stakeholders may assess portfolio performance in reference to goals and make decisions that ensure resources are directed to the most profitable activities for the company.
