What is resource management and why it so important

Table of content

Project resource management in brief
Resource management is all about people  
5 important steps in resource management process
Who is responsible for resource management?
6 crucial key elements of the resource management
Common sense in resource management
10 +2 challenges of resource management
What are the ultimate benefits of resource management in project management?
Where to start and what to remember
Conclusion

Project resource management is all about ensuring you have the right people, in the right place, at the right time to complete your project. It is not an easy task—this guide will provide you the best ideas to make the most of it.

Project Resource Management in Brief

🤔 Figure Out What Is Needed: Identify the required competencies, project timeline, and budget.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Optimize Capacity Throughout the Organization: Ensure that everyone is allocated to different projects with the right set of skills. Avoid overallocation and resolve conflicts.

📊 Keeping Track: Changes are inevitable in project management. Monitor resource usage to ensure everything aligns with the plan.

⚖️  Optimizing Your Efficiency: To succeed, you need to optimize capacity as effectively as possible. Ensure resources are used efficiently to avoid waste of time and stay within budget.  

In a nutshell, resource management is all about smart planning, efficient use of resources, and effective communication to ensure the project runs smoothly and successfully and people are satisfied with their work.  

‍Resource Management Is All About People

People are the most important asset in a company, so it’s crucial to keep the focus on them if you want to be successful. Resource management is designed to support this goal. In an ideal world, resource management ensures that the right skills are in the right places.

We all know that the more people you have, the more complex the situation becomes. Managing resources is relatively straightforward with 5 people, but it becomes a completely different challenge with 50 or even 1000 people. A resource management solution is key to making this process easier and ensuring happier employees.

Happy employees are those who are not overallocated to projects, where their absences and holidays are counted in, and their competencies included. There should be constant communication and collaboration between units, teams, and within the team itself.

Resource management is about understanding, supporting, and effectively utilizing your people to ensure the success of the company and maintain a positive workplace environment. ‍

Learn more about the topic.

5 Important Steps in the Resource Management Process

1. Plan the project At the start of the resource management process, the focus is on determining the composition of the project team. The individuals responsible for setting up the project will request resources for the team, and management will assign people to these projects.

Learn more about setting up the project team

2. Resource management meetings Resource management meetings are the place where final decisions about resource planning are made. Depending on the size of the organization, there may be a single meeting for the entire company or multiple meetings in a larger organization. The purpose of these meetings is to optimize resources and address any potential conflicts in the resourcing plan.

Learn more about resource management meetings

3. Tracking time Reporting hours is a task for each person in the organization. It is important to track how much time people are working and to which projects. This tracking helps evaluate the effectiveness of resource plans and allows for further development of these plans.

Learn more about tracking time

4. Forecasting the future Top management should frequently monitor the overall resourcing situation. They can evaluate business performance, determine if there is a need for new employees or projects, and forecast future resource needs. Monitoring utilization rates is also crucial.

Learn more about forecasting the future

5. Updating the resource plan Whenever changes occur, the responsible individuals update the plans, and the process goes through a new iteration. Once the plans are updated in the system, everyone has access to the latest data for monitoring.

Learn more about updating the resource plan

Who is responsible for resource management?

Resource managers are responsible for allocating the appropriate resources to ensure that a project is completed on time and within budget. They often work in conjunction with project managers, who handle the creation and assignment of specific tasks.

Ultimately, an effective business owner or resource manager understands the minimum amount of resources necessary to achieve the best results.

The responsibility for resource management varies depending on the organization’s size and structure. Depending on your workplace, the following individuals or roles might be responsible for resource management:

• Project Manager (yes, you likely expected this one!)

• Operations Manager

• Resource Manager

• Agency Owner

• Chief Operating Officer or Vice President of Operations

• Department or Line Manager

• PMO Leader  

6 crucial key elements of the resource management  

1. Resource allocation is all about making sure that right people are in right places. It makes possible to use resources in the most efficient way but also make sure that they are not over burden with too much work. People are able to deliver good results when they have time to do the work and they have capability for it.  

2. Resource scheduling involves creating a detailed timetable for resource usage. It ensures that resources are used effectively without conflicts or bottlenecks. Proper scheduling helps in meeting deadlines and maintaining a steady workflow. But remember, in the end- resource scheduling is all about people.  

3. Skill Tracking involves continuously monitoring and documenting the competencies and experience levels of team members. This includes details about their expertise and proficiency levels (junior, mid, senior). Additionally, this information is required to link into resource allocation to ensure the right people are allocated to projects.

4. Absence Management in resource management is crucial for maintaining productivity and ensuring project continuity. It involves tracking and managing employee absences, including holidays.  

5. Resource optimization focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of resource usage. Determining whether the team members you’ve identified for a task can actually take on the work. Accurate capacity and resource optimization ensure team members have a manageable workload and aligned with their ability to execute effectively.

6. Forecasting involves predicting future resource needs based on current trends, historical data, and estimated growth. Accurate forecasting helps in planning for future projects and ensuring that sufficient resources will be available to meet upcoming demands.

Common sense in resource management

Most full-time employees work around 40 hours per week, but this doesn’t mean they have eight hours each day available for project-based tasks. Thoughtful resource management accounts for the time needed for non-project activities, such as meetings and administrative tasks. It also involves assigning projects that employees find both enjoyable and challenging while ensuring that no one is overloaded or underutilized. If you do this, you will gain benefits that also makes the business flourish.  

6. benefits that you want to achieve

1. Enhanced job satisfaction:
   By considering the time needed for non-project activities and carefully managing workloads, employees can concentrate more effectively on their tasks, resulting in higher overall productivity.

2. Better work-life balance:
   Ensuring manageable workloads prevents burnout and promotes a healthier work-life balance, which can reduce emplyee  turnover and absenteeism.

3. Improved quality of work:
   When employees are not overburdened, they can dedicate appropriate time and effort to their tasks, resulting in higher quality work and better outcomes.

4. Optimal resource utilization:
   Thoughtful resource management ensures that all team members are effectively utilized, with no one being underworked or overworked, leading to more efficient use of organizational resources.

5. Reduced project delays:
   Proper planning and workload management minimize the risk of delays caused by overextended employees, helping projects stay on track and meet deadlines.

6. Enhanced Team Collaboration:
   By balancing workloads and matching project assignments to team members' strengths and interests, you create a more collaborative team environment. This can lead to more innovative solutions and better teamwork.

10+2 challenges of resource management

If there were no changes and everything went as planned, resource management would be easy. Unfortunately, real life is a bit different. Resource management is often like a puzzle full of challenges.
Here are ten common challenges faced in resource management:

1. Evenly distributed workload
   Distributing resources among different projects and tasks can be tough, especially when resources are limited, or priorities keep changing.

2. Capacity Planning:
   Predicting and planning for future resource needs can be hard, especially when project details and deadlines keep changing.

3. Balancing heavy workloads Making sure workloads are balanced to avoid burnout or underutilization needs careful monitoring. If there’s too much work, the quality of the results can suffer.

4. Handling Sudden Absences:
   Managing unexpected absences due to illness or emergencies without disrupting progress can be tough and needs good planning.

5. Skill Gaps: Identifying and addressing gaps between the skills available within the team and the skills required for specific projects can complicate resource allocation. The larger the team, the harder it is to keep track of competencies.  

6. Staying on budget: Allocating resources effectively while keeping within budget and ensuring quality and deadlines can be very challenging, particularly with tight budgets.  

7. Resource Conflicts: Double-booking and scheduling conflicts can delay projects and cause confusion about who is responsible for what.

8. Project Scope Changes: Adjusting resource plans when project scope or requirements changes requires flexibility and can disrupt original resource allocations.

9. Tracking and Monitoring: When you don’t know what your team is spending their time on, you can’t accurately assess workloads, potentially resulting in overworked team members or lack of understanding of how much time your team spends on work, you risk inaccurately billing clients for projects

10. Ineffective Communication: Poor communication regarding resource availability, project requirements, and expectations can lead to misunderstandings and reduced motivation, especially when team members are unclear about what is expected of them.

11. Finding the right tool to manage your people: There are dozens of tools to choose from, but only one of them can be the best option for your organization.  

12. Adapting new solutions: Getting team members to learn a new solution when they’re already overloaded can be a big challenge, but the benefits can be transformative for the company.

What are the ultimate benefits of resource management in project management?

Business can benefit from an effective resource management in numerous ways. Here are the top 3 things that resource management will bring on the table:

• Identifying and avoiding problems:  
  A clear understanding of available resources helps identify potential issues early, such as staffing gaps, inefficiencies, or need to reallocations of finances to run business smoothly. If you don’t know exactly what resources available, easily avoidable problems will get in your way. Remember that right solution should give you all the right answers.

• Increase on transparency: Good resource management fosters transparency between teams, allowing them to plan based on both their own and other departments' capacities, thus minimizing conflicts and improving coordination.

• Avoid overallocation: By distributing work and resources effectively, businesses can avoid over-reliance on any single resource, preventing operational disruptions if that resource becomes unavailable.

Adapt to change quickly: One of the most beneficial elements of resource management in projects is the ability to change gears quickly when the unexpected happens. This can involve individual team members or broader industry shifts, such as an economic downturn."

Where to start and what to remember

Choose the right resource management tool for your team

As business grow, spreadsheets often become inadequate. The larger your team or the more complex your projects, the more resource management challenges you'll face. When selecting a tool, consider factors such as budget, features, and user skill levels. This is the first and crucial step towards effective resource management.

Before choosing the right project resource management software, several steps are necessary to ensure a suitable selection for the organization's needs. The process begins with finding and evaluating potential candidates, considering requirements identified beforehand.
Ultimately, the chosen tool should simplify project resource management and align with organizational goals, potentially requiring adjustments to processes for optimal integration.  

Learn more on how to pick perfect resource management solution.

Remember communication

A report by McKinsey shows that if you communicate effectively with your employees, you can boost their productivity. In fact, effective communication can increase a team’s productivity by between 20 and 25%.  

One of the most important aspects of resource management is communication. While we can establish processes and choose appropriate solutions, effective communication between people is essential. Continuous face-to-face communication is necessary for success.

You can also create tools to make resource management a bit easier. For example, developing simple guidelines for resourcing can help streamline the process.

It can look for example like this:

1. Plan your project carefully.  

2. Make realistic resource allocations

3. Make resource plans on a weekly level

4. Make allocations until at least two months ahead

5. Update resource plans every week before Friday 11 AM.  

6. Don’t assign someone else’s resources! If you want to assign an expert from another team, you need to talk first with their supervisor first!

7. Make allocations first to a role level, update information when you know person who will do the work.  

8. It is important to allocate resources also to sales and prospect projects.  

9. Use competencies when doing the allocation plans

10. Ask help if you don’t know how to do it!  ‍

Take a people-first approach

Management should focus on prioritizing people over projects by leading with empathy and considering the team’s long-term well-being. Resource management is all about people.  

You need to keep all this in mind when prioritizing people over projects.

✔️ Be proactive: Regularly evaluate timelines, assess capacity realistically, and manage risks actively. Use your experience and intuition to adjust plans as needed.

✔️ Being Empathetic: Create a supportive environment where team members feel safe to discuss challenges and collaborate on solutions. Again, communication is a key here.

✔️ Be Transparent: Clearly communicate goals and priorities to ensure the team is informed and can engage openly about their needs and how they can assist each other.

✔️ Be Supportive: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their challenges and collaborating to find solutions.

Conclusion

Resource management is tricky—there's no doubt about that. However, with thoughtful planning, you can achieve happier employees and a more profitable business. Resource management is the cornerstone of successful project execution. By ensuring the right people are in the right roles at the right time, you will optimize team performance and drive the organization towards achieving its goals more effectively.

Resource management software, such as Silverbucket, helps you make informed decisions about your team’s workload. With features like skill management, capacity management, and drag-and-drop scheduling, you can easily visualize and manage your resources effectively. ‍

Want to know why Resourcing with Silverbucket is like a vacation? Read Link Arkitekture case story and you will have answer to that!

As Head of Digital, Arno De Ryst leads the digital development at LINK,  Arno has been following the positive impact of Silverbucket on the company's efficiency. Before starting to make resource planning with Silverbucket, the company was struggling with different Excels for seven offices in Sweden and people weren´t able to see each other's allocations.