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In the fast-paced world of business, where project deliverables must meet client’s expectations as well as stringent deadlines and tight budgets, what’s the most important thing that’s essential to ensure a project’s success?
Proper resource planning.
However, even with a lot of planning, challenges and contingencies can pop up at any point in time and must be resolved promptly. So, this blog will walk you through a few handy tips to help you effectively overcome resource management challenges.
What is Resource Management?
Resource management is the process of allocating the resources in a project effectively in order to meet its goals and objectives.
When these aren’t allocated and utilized properly, it can result in project delay, budget overrun, increased chances of scope creep, and even project failure.
In order to deal with these resource planning challenges, businesses need to map out an effective resource management plan that clearly spells out the requirements of the project, including what resources are needed, what skill sets and experience they should have, and their availability for the stipulated duration.
Tips to Overcome Resource Management Challenges
- Onboard the Right Resources
The first step of resource management is onboarding employees with the right skills and experience. In order to do that, the manager must have complete information about such resources, including their skills, qualifications, position, experience, availability during the estimated schedule, etc.
Managers should have a clear insight into the project’s requirements, such as – how many resources with particular skills will be required and for what duration. When a manager onboards the right employees who are available for the stipulated period for any project, it’ll minimize the chances of skill gaps, project delays, or cost overruns.
- Be Prepared for the Contingencies
Effective resource management involves having a plan B if the resource planning goes off track.
For instance, if any resource has to leave the project in the middle due to some exigency or the project faces some skills gap, then what will be your options?
You should have the answers to these questions in such a scenario:
- Can any other resource with similar skills pick up the slack?
- Can you outsource the leftover work to any freelancer?
- Can you onboard a new employee immediately in case of such urgency?
And it’s a good idea to have some options in case situations like these arise.
- Leverage Historical Data for Data-Driven Decisions
Managers can avail of a previously completed project’s information to better estimate project timelines. From the historical records, they can assess several parameters, such as how much time a particular resource takes for a particular type of task, which types of tasks take more time vs. less, etc.
This evaluation will help them make informed decisions on setting realistic timelines and allocating appropriate resources on different parts of projects without the need to exceed the team’s capacity.
- Prevent Resource Hogging
Adding extra resources than required in any project can sound lucrative, as there will always be some backup available, and the project may hardly face any skill gap or staff shortage.
However, such additional resources may invite social loafing, underperforming resources, and unnecessary increases in the budget. So, make sure to assign only the number of resources that you think you will actually need in the project.
- Manage the Workload of Resources
It’s crucial to keep a tab on resource utilization during an ongoing project to check if they’re underutilized or overutilized. Some resources may likely be burdened with extra workload, which can lead to burnout, stress, and hampered productivity. On the other hand, others may be slacking off their work or may have a few tasks on their plate.
Thus, be sure to re-adjust the workload evenly if you notice some resources are overworking and others have fewer tasks to accomplish. You can consider dividing the workload using resource leveling, which prevents the over-allocation or underutilization of resources by splitting the work as per their availability.
- Use Resource Tracking Tools
Not having real-time insights into resource utilization, project progress, and bottlenecks can lead to poor decision-making in resource management.
Thus, project managers should leverage a good resource tracking tool which can give them real-time insights into resource management.
Such tools keep track of resource allocation, utilization, availability, and workload. Using this data, managers can optimize the resources and workload with the help of real-time monitoring.
- Use Feedback to Better Manage the Resources
You can introduce a feedback loop system for any undergoing projects in which stakeholders and clients can provide feedback on resource allocation and utilization.
This feedback loop will work as a cornerstone to assess and improve resource utilization continuously.
- Solve Resource Shortage with Proper Prioritization
Unexpected resource shortages can derail the project from its track or delay its delivery. To deal with such contingencies, it is recommended to have a resource prioritization process in place.
These processes can shed light on the project areas with extra or insufficient resources. Equipped with this approach, managers can reallocate the resources as per the project’s priorities to ensure continuous project progress and timely delivery.
- Ensure Appropriate Capacity Planning
Whenever you allocate resources, plan their capacity, and schedule timelines, make sure that you’re not overestimating the resource’s capacity. No resource can work with 100% productivity and efficiency at the workplace. They need time to do administrative work, such as replying to emails, chatting with coworkers, or taking some break time to relax.
So avoid planning resources at full capacity and have realistic timelines considering such factors; otherwise, the project is bound to exceed its timelines each and every time or may go over budget too.
- Communication is the Key
Effective communication and collaboration are the key components of resource management. Not having a proper communication channel can cause project delays or at worst, failure to attain the desired goals.
For instance, there can be duplicate tasks that have already been worked on, and due to lack of communication, another resource works on it again, which will waste their time.
Thus, project managers must regularly have check-in calls with their teams for updates, such as in scrum meetings. This communication will minimize the chances of conflicts and help exchange important information among resources.
Bottom Line
Having effective resource management is crucial for the successful delivery of any project. But challenges and contingencies are inevitable at any phase of the project lifecycle. That’s why it’s a good practice to have a concrete resource management plan. Also, using a resource tracking tool can give visibility into the current status of resource allocation, utilization, and bandwidth in real-time so that prudent decisions can be made for optimal resource usage.
