Resource management is the systematic process of planning, allocating, and managing both human and non-human resources effectively and efficiently. It is vital as it ensures that the right resources are available at the right time for optimal project performance, ultimately leading to successful project completion and client satisfaction.
Resource management that keeps your projects and teams on track
Manage your team's resources effectively, from longer-term forecasting to day-to-day capacity planning, to ensure you
deliver client work on time and on budget.
For professional services businesses aiming to reach their full potential, understanding the components of resource management is pivotal. Here's what it encompasses:
Resource planning: The process of determining what resources (human, equipment, materials) are needed, in what quantities, and when.
Resource allocation: Assigning specific tasks or duties to particular resources, ensuring they are utilized optimally.
Capacity and availability: Assessing the potential and current capacity of resources and ensuring they're available when needed.
Time and budget management: Ensuring that the resources are used within the stipulated time and allocated budget.
Risk management: Identifying and mitigating any potential risks related to resources, ensuring smoother project execution.
Communication: Facilitating transparent communication between team members and stakeholders about resource status and utilization.
Monitoring and tracking: Constantly evaluating resource performance and making necessary adjustments to ensure projects stay on track.
With Teamwork.com's Workload Planner, you can get a complete picture of everyone's workload and availability at-a-glance. Reassign tasks, keep your staff focused, and achieve on-time project delivery - every time.
Why is resource management important?
Resource management is important because it increases transparency, reduces burnout, ensures enough resources are available, and maximizes efficiency.
Having a resource management plan allows project managers to track their resource capacity, project schedules, and utilization rates. In return, they can make sure they have enough people to work on every task and that their team isn’t overworked in the process.
When we mention "resources" here, we're mostly talking about people - who are usually the most critical part of any professional services firm. But don't forget, people aren't the only resources you need to manage. You also have to keep an eye on things like:
Hardware equipment
Facilities
Software
Budgets
Time
If you break it all down, your resources will always fall into three categories: materials, people, and cost. We believe your people are your most valuable asset. They can't be easily replaced when issues arise, and their unique skills can't be replicated. That's why it's so important to plan how you'll use their time and energy on each project - so they stay productive and happy.
With Teamwork.com's real-time utilization reports, you'll always know who's maxed out, who has time to spare, and who is hitting their utilization target
The benefits of great resource management
While resource management allows you to streamline project workflows and enhance every aspect of a project, it's the human element that gains the greatest benefits. We'll outline some of those advantages below.
It prevents burnout across your team: Everyone on your team is more than a number. They’re all essential assets that help you deliver projects. Part of resource management is managing their time properly — and by that, we don’t mean micromanaging them. Rather, it’s all about ensuring that everyone’s workload is balanced such that they’re productive without being overloaded. When you do spot overallocation, it’s time to adjust workloads to prevent burnout. Burnout is a surprisingly common thing, too. According to a study by Indeed, over half (52%) of respondents experienced burnout.
It helps you predict resourcing problems: It’s impossible to predict potential problems 100% of the time. However, it is possible to anticipate potential problems and be prepared for them. Think about things that can happen, or that have happened on past projects for an indication of what could happen on future projects. For example, sometimes tasks don’t get accomplished because team members get sick. Sometimes, they even quit. Resource management makes it easier to deal with these issues. This is because part of resource allocation should be devoted to creating contingencies just in case something goes awry. Or, allocating buffer time so that you and your team have breathing room to catch up and meet deadlines without losing sleep over it.
It helps you allocate the right resources: Picture this: you get a project request from a client and, after a quick scan of your calendar to check resource availabilities—you book it in. It seems great, right? Not unless the people that had free time on their calendars actually have the skillset to complete the project’s tasks. Resource management stops these kinds of situations before they happen by allowing project managers to filter and sort through resources to see if they have the right skill sets to work on a project. Using a tool like Teamwork.com, project managers can quickly filter through resources based on their skill set to see if the right people have space on their calendars before taking it on a new project.
It creates transparency: Resource management keeps your resources organized and easy to view, which creates transparency — and transparency is key for several reasons. For team leaders and project managers, transparency means they’ll have an in-depth view of resources, assets, tasks, and more, which gives them the tools needed for project optimization and effective management. For team members, transparency helps with time tracking and scheduling. Individuals can see where individual tasks are in the pipeline to gauge when those tasks will be headed to them for the next stage of completion. Other teams value transparency, too, because it helps them assess your team’s bandwidth. In large organizations where teams are divided up by specialty, this lets other teams know when your team will have availability to lend their skills to a new project. And then there are the stakeholders. Transparency lets them monitor progress, which in turn allows them to provide timely notice of changes that need to be made or other items that your team may need to consider.
It makes early and on-time project delivery possible: When you get right down to it, effective resource management is the backbone of every project. As you can see in the benefits listed above, it helps you with project planning, resource allocation, and even with things like forecasting potential problems so that you can prepare for them in advance. It also helps the project stay organized. And all of that put together means you can make on-time and even early delivery happen. Better yet, you may even be able to produce deliverables with fewer billable hours and fewer resources used. That’s the power of efficiency. Managing resources well keeps your team running like a well-oiled machine, which lets your team meet or even exceed the project timeline.
With Teamwork.com's Resource Scheduler, you can plan project resources months, quarters, or even years in advance
Resource management techniques
Resource management is a powerful way to track project metrics and predict problems. But what about specific techniques to implement resource management? Let's dive in below.
Resource allocation:Resource allocation is the process of assigning available resources to specific projects. It requires analyzing available resources to understand workload distribution, identify gaps in resource scheduling as well as potential scheduling conflicts.
Resource levelling: Resource levelling allows you to get the most out of your available resources while keeping projects on time and on budget. You can use this technique to resolve issues such as scheduling conflicts or overallocation of resources, while still ensuring projects get completed on time. Resource levelling allows you to optimize resources, minimize deficits, minimize overload and ensure the quality of the work is still to a high standard.
Resource forecasting: To accurately forecast resourcing, you’ll need to fully understand the scope and goals of a project. Once this is established, you’ll be able to identify the resources you have available to use now and in the future, to get the project completed on time and within the allocated budget.
With Teamwork.com's flexible drag and drop planning, you can meet shifting deadlines or changes in scope without missing a beat
Achieving project success with a resource management platform
For client services firms to streamline their operations and ensure seamless project execution, a robust resource management platform is paramount. Teamwork.com stands out as a platform that offers a comprehensive suite of features tailored for resource management in agency project management. Leveraging such a platform not only optimizes resource allocation but also elevates project outcomes, enhancing client satisfaction and profitability.
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