Resource management is one of the top priorities for any PMO implementing a project and portfolio management solution. There are three levels of maturity for resource management, and not all PMO’s need to get to Level 3 to be successful.
Level 1: Visibility into the work across the organization. Or simply put, who is working on what and when? These are the tasks and assignments from the various work management tools you may be using across project teams.
Level 2: Resource availability through a formal process of requests and allocations. You can think of this as your resource budget or your resource plan that outlines where you want people to spend their time.
Level 3: Timesheets, for organizations that need to charge for their people’s time or capitalize labor.
Related: Download Sensei’s “PPM Maturity Roadmap – Self-Assessment”
Most organizations use multiple work management tools, which can make it difficult to get an overview of all work in the organization. By synchronizing all tasks and assignments from these tools into Microsoft Dataverse, you now have a complete picture of who is working on what when. Then, filter by department, or a specific role, and see the number of assignments by project type and location. Or look at an individual to see everything they have assigned and any tasks that are late starting or overdue.
Benefits include providing stakeholders visibility into what people are working on across projects and giving team members direction on what work to do in which order. However, to get the best result, the project managers must assign tasks to team members in the appropriate work management tools and ideally assign effort for each task.
Resource management level 2 follows a process that’s quite similar to your project budgeting process.
The project manager will submit a request for resources needed for the project. This is often referred to as a resource budget or a resource plan. Ideally the request is for generic roles as opposed to named individuals.
If the project is approved, the resource manager or line manager will then select the named individuals to work on the project at an approved allocation level. The project manager can then assign tasks to those individuals in the work management tool, staying within the approved allocation level, of course. There are many variations of this process, but the outcome is always resource availability.
In the example below, Amy has been allocated to work 80 hours this month on the first project and 50 hours on the second, leaving her with 38 hours of remaining availability.
The full resource plan is typically built at the beginning of a project in the planning phase by requesting a certain amount of hours, but it can also be percentage or FTE requests. It’s also not uncommon to request additional resources during project execution, which is why it’s important to have a regular review process to assess allocations. Once the resource plan has been built, it’s submitted for approval.
You can now see the total proposed demand for resources, both by role and by initiative, from all resource plans.
And in a quarterly or annual planning cycle, you may also want to compare the incoming demand with approved allocations on in-flight projects. In the example below, dark blue represents committed allocations on existing projects, and light blue represents the proposed or requested allocations on new business cases. The red line represents resource capacity so it’s easy to visually see when that is exceeded.
If you also have a prioritization process in place, you can view the order in which you should staff projects.
The hiring report shows how many FTE’s you would need to hire for each role in order to get everything done.
If the business case is approved, then the resource manager will substitute the generic roles for named individuals, or just approve if named individuals were already requested. You now have an approved resource plan with formal allocations for your team members.
There are many benefits to a formal resource management process, including seeing availability based on approved allocations; identifying variances from approved allocations; and showing future demand and potential bottlenecks. To make this all work does require a commitment to formal approvals of all allocations; maintaining accurate resource calendars; and keeping a regular cadence of resource allocation discussions and review.
Resource management Level 3 is timesheets. Culturally, this can be a big ask for team members. We typically see timesheets used only in organizations that are either capitalizing labor or charging for their people’s time.
With the tasks and assignments from the various work management tools already synchronized into Dataverse, you now have a universal timesheet with assignments from all projects, as well as non-working and non-project categories. Team members can track all their time across the week, and add comments if necessary. You get to choose who has to fill in timesheets, and whether these require approvals or not.
If you do decide to track time in your organization, you will get a lot of good data from it, including insights into how much time is actually spent on project work, versus non-project or nonworking time.
You will be able to see where people are spending their time and the amount of time tracked to specific projects or categories.
If you maintain cost rates for your resources, then you will also be able to see how much the time tracked actually cost each project. Likewise, if you maintain sell rates, you’ll also see the cost to the client and your own margin.
The primary benefit of timesheets is the accurate capture of actuals for accounting purposes. But you can also use it to improve future estimation by comparing your actuals to the original plan. To be successful does require a commitment to weekly timesheets tracked at a daily level. Ideally, you are also tracking at a task level, not just at the project level.
The key to resource management in a PMO is a solid process. Work management tools don’t provide true resource management since the scope is only for their own users. By putting people at the center, you get true resource management, and still have the flexibility to do the work in the tools that make the most sense for each project.
Behind the process are some decisions you need to make, a key one being whether you are going to account for all time or just project time. You may have a portion of time set aside for business-as-usual or keep- the-lights-on type of activities. You can either allocate individuals to spend time on this non-project work, or you can subtract it from the equation and only manage project time.
It’s also important to recognize and agree that the resource manager owns the ALLOCATION of team members at the project level, and the project manager owns the ASSIGNMENTS on tasks within the approved allocation.
Resource management is important for any PMO, but especially for one that is implementing a PPM solution. From a top-down perspective, it helps ensure strategic allocation of people to the projects that drive results that align with the strategic goals of the organization. This is particularly important in larger organizations with lots of projects and people.
The number one driver of dates on projects is people. Having people allocated sufficiently to get the job done ensures timely delivery, and having the RIGHT people allocated ensures we get the quality we’re looking for. And with a good understanding of the pipeline of work as well as the resource requirements, we’re able to better forecast what our needs are and plan staffing and hiring accordingly.
Contact us: info@senseiprojectsolutions.com
Deirdre has worked in the Information Technology field for over 30 years with an emphasis on successful project, program, and portfolio delivery. She has been an application developer, a database architect, a business analyst, a systems analyst, a project manager, program manager, and portfolio manager. She has also led a team focused on the continuous improvement of the project process from ideation through execution including establishing standards to meet Sarbanes-Oxley, COBIT, and PII compliance. Deirdre focuses on helping organizations improve project success using continuous process improvement and simplification in alignment with best practices. She has implemented and provided training on several PPM tools over the years. She is an active member of PMI’s New Hampshire Chapter and has been a round table presenter.
