Planning Resource Management gives guidance in defining the roles and responsibilities. Resources include team members, money, supplies, buildings, and other necessary resources to complete a project.
“Nothing we do is more important than hiring people, at the end of the day you bet on people, not strategies” - Lawerence Bossidy
Our PMP and CAPM training carefully dissects the various theories and how they shape the dynamics of the project team
Resource Management Overview
Gala
As the event manager for this year’s gala to raise funds to breast cancer research, Susan realizes she has many tasks that need to be done before the event. With caffeine in her hand, she pings her assistant Jenna to meet her in her office with prior resource plans and documents from last year’s gala.
While waiting for Jenna, Susan prints out the activity list she created a few days ago as well as follow up with Jason, her manager, on resource availability for these activities. Jason had provided an update on the resources available. He reminds Susan that some of the resources have conflicts and that an alternate resource may need to be allocated. Susan reviews the organization chart and the RACI chart she assembled a few days ago.
RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consult and inform. RACI chart proves effective to figure out roles and responsibilities. Some of the work packages include site selection, entertainment, food, and beverages, etc. With the help of Jenna, Susan gets a handle on the resources, and she is ready for resource estimation.
Understanding the number of resources required to complete an activity is going to be crucial to plan the schedule. With the activity list in hand, Susan decided the best way to figure this out is to use Bottom-up estimating. Using this method, the objective is to break complex tasks into small parts. Then each subsequent element is assigned the required supplies. The cost of each resource is tallied to provide a reasonable idea of the entire project's budget. This method is a highly reliable way to gauge project needs, so long as the resource assessment for each task is accurate.
With the help of the project management software, such as Microsoft Project, Susan is done with activity resource estimating; she has everything she needs to figure out how long each activity will take. To complete this task, she must examine each item on the plan and evaluate the scope, the range of time, and the capital required to achieve it.
For example, how long with it take Michelle to create the website for the Gala. She decided on Analogous estimating and expert judgment. Analogous estimation refers to the process of reviewing past projects to determine the length of time required to complete a specific activity.
Keep in mind this would only work if the activities and resources are similar.
It has been a productive morning, and Susan decides to break for lunch. After lunch, she meets with Jason to review the proposed resources as well as run the possibility of hiring some part-time help for the next few months. During the meeting with Jason, you examine the resource calendars. It seems that Adriana, who oversees donations, is also assisting Dr. Sussman pediatric cancer benefit starting in March. With the gala scheduled for August, Jason agrees to put in a request for a part-time employee to assist Adriana. The meeting concluded with an email to the team and their assignments.
The planning is underway, and Susan knows firsthand how important a good team is. A good team performs better than a group of disconnected individuals. The first few weeks were rough; there was some conflict with Amit and Ronald over which caterer to select and the design of the invitation cards. However, they were able to resolve it quickly and move onto the other tasks. Susan recognized the team’s hard work and reminded them of what a great job they are doing during the weekly team meetings. She applauded them for their collaboration in resolving conflicts. Despite the pressure to meet all the deadlines set, Susan never walked away from her team. Susan made sure they knew she was part of the team as well as the team leader. She was there for guidance and support.
Like any project, not all resources are required full time through the life of the project. In the Gala project, during month 05, many of the resources dedicated to the upfront planning were no longer needed full time and were able to assist other managers who required resources. In Susan’s case, Amit was no longer required to be on the project full time and was able to support the project team assigned to Dr. Sussman's benefit.
In the end, the Gala was a success. You remind the project team to file all the documents with the PMO office for future use.
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