Resource management is for allocating resources to tasks and projects for the purpose of efficiency and maximizing the organizations’ productivity.
These are four misconceptions about what is needed for resource management:
- Make accurate estimates
- Keep track of the availability of staff
- Report task progress frequently
- Resource management is complex
You don’t need accurate estimates
To increase the efficiency of project organizations, accurate estimates are no prerequisite. Never.
Most problems and inefficiencies can be traced back to people who didn’t have time. Too many other things to do. Too many projects to pay attention to. Not because of unreliable estimates but because of starting too many projects.
To increase efficiency of people and the entire organization, it is sufficient to reduce the number of projects a bit. It is the proves strategy behind the best project management success stories.
You do need to control the timing for staring new projects. Else people will get overloaded quickly again. Luckily, the timing only need to be roughly OK to keep your project pipeline running and to prevent it start to jam again. A handful high-level ball park figures for each project is all it takes. It is sufficient to keep it just right for most efficient workload.
You don’t need to know the availability if people
Keeping track of the availability of staff also is not a prerequisite to increase efficiency. The trick is to focus on the highest workloads. By preventing this bottleneck gets overloaded, nobody gets overwhelmed. You only need a handful high-level ball park figures per project. You even don’t need to know who exactly is involved in which project.
Report task progress frequently
You don’t need frequent reports on the progress people make on their tasks. The pitfall is to treat projects as a collection of tasks. Instead of keeping track of every task and how much progress people make it is sufficient to keep track of where the projects is relative the bottleneck they must pass.
That is what this project plan board is designed for. You only need to keep the project in the right column, to be able to measure the velocity in the pipeline and to control the timing for starting and competing projects.
Resource Management is complex
The last misconception is that resource management is complex. If your goal is to efficiently plan projects across the resources of your organization and to boost productivity, then you don’t need accurate estimates, you don’t need to keep track of the availability of people, and people don’t need to report on their task progress frequently. You also don’t need complex software and heavily loaded implementation and change programs to get started.
Checkout the Boot Camp to do it yourself
How it exactly works is what you’ll learn during Empower Your Projects boot camp program. Instead of trying to figure it out all by yourself, you learn how to plan projects across resources for the purpose of efficiency and maximizing the organizations’ productivity. We guide you when you try to do it for your organization and use this simple project pipeline app. Register now.
