Key Principles of Resource Management

Project management as we know has evolved as an important part in most of the organizations.
Starting from research and development to big transformations, project management finds its
application. But the hard truth is that not all projects become successful as others. If project
deliverables and benefits are realized as budgeted and scheduled, the project is entitled as
successful. But it’s not as simple as it seems to be.

Unlike the traditional approach, project management is not only about scheduling the project tasks. It
also depends upon, how you manage resources well suited to organizational maturity at Project
portfolio management (PPM) scale. Resources are very significant, if not primary, components of
project management. And if these resources are not properly assigned to the projects, they may lead
to project failure being counterproductive. So resource management is essential for an organization
practicing project management approaches.

In this article, you’ll learn to define:

 resource management,
 resource management methods and
 resource management importance.

What are management resources required for a project?

Type of resources in the project:

Resources in a project can be -

 work resources,
 material resources and
 cost resources

These resources comprise the people, equipment, facility, knowledge, information (IT), funding or
others. They are the key factors for the completion of any project activity. People resources are very
important element of any project and not easy to manage. Thus people need some additional ways
of dealing when it comes to resource management. They can be made more productive by following
some key management principles (discussed later in this article). Now, let’s understand, what
Resource management is.

What is Resource management?

The purpose of project management is to collaborate processes, resources and PM tools to achieve
a common goal and produce intended deliverables. Hence, apart from project management tools,
resources play a vital role for any project success.

Let’s uncover the question - what is resource management? – Its about, how do you manage
resources. Hence, resource management is to maximize the resource productivity towards desired
outcomes by managing them effectively.
What is project resource management?
“Project Resource management is to effectively use right type of resource for right time during a
project execution to produce expected deliverables.” In order to achieve strategic business goals
and financial goals, it is desired to maximize the return on investment in resources. Especially with
people, because human resources are significant cost element in any project. All projects need
people resources with some specific set of skills to accomplish project tasks.

Lets define resource manager role in a project:

Project resource manager is responsible to divide right skills for right project tasks at right time.

Usually, a project manager and resource manager have specific responsibility to carry out any
project. Project manager is responsible to plan and execute the project. Resource manager
manages between resource demand and supply. He evaluates the resource requirement for a
project and assign appropriate resources to project tasks. He or she also manages resource
utilization to maximize its productivity. They also analyze necessary metrics related to resource
assignment and capacity planning. Below figure 1, well describes the roles of these two.

Figure 1: Roles & responsibilities of project manager and resource manager

Image Source: docs.oracle.com

Project resource manager uses tools to plan for resource allocation – known as resource planning
tools and to assign the resources – known as resource assignment matrix (RAM or RACI).

Refer below figure to understand, how to create a resource plan:

Figure 2: How to create a resource plan

 Image source: http://www.techno-pm.com/p/resource-plan.html

In the above resource plan template, first column identifies different resources as A, B and C.

Second column tells the association of particular resource with related team.

Third column relates resource to different projects followed by specific project tasks in fourth
column.

In subsequent column, resource assignment to various tasks for specific hours in a day is
maintained. For an example, resource A, in team A is allocated for task 1 of project A on 16-
February for 5 hours.

Refer below table 01 to know about resource assignment matrix:

RACI Matrix:

Table 01: Resource assignment matrix or RACI matrix

RACI matrix finds its name from the acronym – R (Responsible), A (Accountable), C (Consulted) and
I (Informed).

 R: defines the person who is assigned to do the work

 A: defines the person who makes the final decision and has the ultimate ownership
 C: defines the person who must be consulted before a decision or action is taken
 I: defines the person who must be informed that a decision or action has been taken

Many organizations have seen project failure even after implementing the best resources
management software why?
The reason is, organizations have their processes at different maturity level. And if the resources are
not aligned to the process maturity, then it is very likely to meet project failures at initial or later
stages.

Many organizations struggle to answer the following set of questions:

1. What are our resources working upon?

2. Are all required resources available for the project with right skills?
3. Are all resources engaged in one or another project?
4. Do we have resources to assign to any urgent project demand?
5. Do we have proper control of assigning resources to different projects?
6. What is the cost variable associated with the resources in a particular month?
7. Can a critical resource be spared for any urgent project needs?

Project Resource management is very helpful to answer above questions and to address the
question –
“What is resource management?”.

What makes a good resource?

There are some key principles of resource management. These principles are useful for any
organization to manage their resources in projects.

Principles of resource management:

Let’s discuss these key management principles:

1. Resources are usually people:

Project resources are managed with the help of resource assignment matrix such as RACI chart and
capacity utilization calculation for different resources. But we can’t ignore the fact that resources are
people too, who can’t only be measured by hard data set for their efficiency and effectiveness.

They require some soft skills to manage them efficiently. Skills include communication, leadership,
and guidance to be motivated and inspired while working. The data can only tell about resource
utilization and resource availability, but cannot increase resource productivity. Hence, a metric can
be used to identify the areas of concern. But they can be well addressed by the people themselves.
Talk to the relevant resources or team regarding concerns and help them to resolve the same.

2. Key people management:

Involve the resources to achieve common project objectives. Ensure to align all the resources and
set expectations. Resources should be clear about, what is expected out of them. They should
understand the priority & importance of assigned tasks. They should be involved in project risk
identification by encouraging them for open discussion. They should be given the liberty to set and
estimate task schedules depending on their priorities. This will increase the resource commitment
towards schedules.

3. Principles of team management:

Bring the sense of collaboration among team members. So that all the resources come to the
common platform of understanding. This will foster productivity & creativity and eventually decreases
the chances of errors. Real time feedback to the team will enhance their confidence and
commitment.

4. Principle of allocation:

Always try to allocate the right resources for right tasks. Don’t just assign the tasks to the resources.
Always match the resource capability and interest with the task and then do an assignment. Know
your resource and his or her interest, Then figure out which task motivates him or her the most.
Assign that task only to him or her to keep your resource production.

5. Rewards & recognition:

Also, the efforts of your resources should not go unrewarded. Ensure to make your resources knew
about, how important their contribution to assigned tasks was. Recognize their effort and time.

Resource allocation best practices to manage resources effectively:

There are some best practices followed by organizations to allocate their resources efficiently and
manage them effectively. Lets discuss them in following heads:

1. Centralized resource pool:

Set up a centralized resource pool for project assignments. Use two important management tools to
govern the resource pool – the cost associated with each resource in pool and availability of each
resource. Based on these two criteria, manage the allocation of resources to different project tasks.

2. Leveling resource:

Balance the workload of resources, so that no resource is overloaded. Resource leveling needs to
be done on a continuous basis to ensure resources are being used effectively and aligned as per the
need of task prioritization.

3. Know who is doing what:

Keep the track of resources allocation in real time to know which resource is engaged in whatever
activity at a particular moment. This will certainly help to keep all the resources productive and
maximize their effective utilization.

4. Track the progress:

One should not neglect the importance of information resource management. Track the progress of
ongoing projects in real time to obtain maximum information, to understand the challenges and to
anticipate any potential risk. So that there is course correction, if needed and can be executed in
advance. Take the help of IT support and IT infrastructure to get real time information pertaining to
project status.

5. Future forecasting:
Taking all above points into account, you may come up with future forecasting on resource planning
and management. Analyze what went well & what went wrong and accordingly take actions to
forecast future demands and capacity planning.

6. Use appropriate RM software:

Some appropriate software can also be used to manage resources effectively. They can provide a
user-friendly interface to manage resources in real time. But, my advice is to choose appropriate
software for your organization based on the organizational maturity level so that you can utilize these
softwares in right perspective.

PMP - Resource Management Model:

Let’s understand, why PMP - Resource Management Model?

After assessing your organizational processes based on program management maturity model for
complex large organizations (involved in multiple related projects) or project management maturity
models for other organizations, a proper resource management maturity model (RMMM) can be
assigned to project phases or activities. This is done to maximize the ROI of resource components.

PMI (Project Management Institute) Resource Management Maturity Model provides a framework.
This framework helps to assign adequate resources during the life of the projects based on
organizational capabilities for realizing following benefits:

1. Common understanding:
It provides a common understanding among project resource manager, project portfolio manager
and business executives. This develops the common language of communicating project
deliverables, objectives, issues etc.

2. Self-Assessment:
This framework helps stakeholders & organizations to assess their present and optimal levels of
maturity.

3. Decision- making for resources management:

It helps to match the organizational capabilities and maturity with resource management model for
projects. Every organization doesn’t require a higher level of resource management maturity.

4. Selection of suitable software:

According to PPM maturity, an organization can select suitable PPM software to manage its
resources and to address current and potential needs.

For effective resource management in organizations, there are typically 1 - 5 levels of Resource
Management Maturity Model. They are listed below along with an additional level 0 describing “No
formal process level”. These RMMM levels are based on PMI defined program or project
management maturity models for organizations:
LEVEL 0 – No Formal Process

LEVEL 1 – Work Visibility

LEVEL 2 - Controlled Assignment

LEVEL 3 – Governed Capacity

LEVEL 4 – Schedule Driven Assignment

LEVEL 5 – Granular Management

Now, lets understand these RMMM levels in detail:

LEVEL 0: No Formal Process:

Resources used by managers are allocated on ad hoc basis to the projects at this level. There is no
formal process on resource allocation. Hence resources are not effectively utilized under this
maturity level and this leads to risky & counterproductive outcomes.

LEVEL 1: Work Visibility:

This level gives organizations an opportunity to know, “which resource is working on what”, But
resources are not allocated and assigned to work in controlled way or with oversight.

LEVEL 2: Controlled assignment:

Under this maturity level, there is a formal resource assignment approval process known as
“Resource approval workflow or RAW”. However, the resource manager performs approvals by
consulting a heat map indicating the availability of each resource and providing approvals only when
availability exceeds demand.

LEVEL 3: Governed Capacity:

This level introduces the concept of capacity management. It provides a governance structure, which
prioritizes projects over new resource demands.

Under this maturity level, a resource or portfolio governance committee is typically formed. The
committee comprises of stakeholders from demand side (Project ideas, proposals, requests etc),
supply side (i.e. resources) and business executives. Based on different criteria such as financial
impacts, tangible & non-tangible benefits, associated risks etc, project prioritization takes place. If
enough resources are not available for all proposed projects, committee can decline to approve
some of the projects after project prioritization and approve only prioritized projects to assign scarce
resources in the best possible way.

LEVEL 4: Schedule Driven Assignment:

Not all the resources equally participate in all the phases of a project. Thus in this resource maturity
level, resource assignment approval and capacity management are triggered by project schedule at
phase level. Project resources are assigned according to phase level activity information delineated
in the project work breakdown structure.

LEVEL 5: Granular Management:

Under this maturity level, resource assignment approval and capacity management processes are
driven by complete and full task level project schedule. This maturity level considers resource
assignment at very granular level ie full task levels of work breakdown structure. This level of
maturity may be necessary when the phase-level information about resource utilization is too coarse
and full project schedule detail is necessary and meaningful to the business.

The appropriate level of RMM Model should be used with related PM maturity of an organization to
ensure project success.

Final Takeaways:
In a nutshell, resources indeed are indispensable components of any project and they require to be
managed effectively and efficiently. This is done to justify the resource - return on investment for any
project. Resources, if not managed well, can result in counterproductive outcomes that leads to
project failures. There are some program management principles and practices to follow while
managing resources. Also, resource allocation best practices are used to allocate project resources
for their best possible outcomes.

The best way is to identify Project portfolio maturity of your organization and take the help of
explained Resource Management Maturity model to assign resources properly to different projects in
hand. Effective resource management in organizations is a key to successful project orientation.

Ace the project management resource scheduling

About The Author

Discerning experience of more than 9 years in Quality Management System, Quality Assurance,
Process Improvement, Operational Excellence, Project Management, Quality Audits, Training &
Development; Ankit has demonstrated abilities in driving Lean Six Sigma projects and conducting
Lean Six Sigma workshops in production and service environments. His credentials include but are
not limited to, ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt, QMS 9001:2015 Lead Auditor, Certified Project
Management Professional, Lean Practitioner and Certified TQM Professional. For driving operational
excellence by deploying Quality Management tools and implementing best business practices, he
has been rewarded and recognized on many occasions by peers & employers. Also, he is a vivid
technical writer in the Project Management and Quality Management domains

Ankit Rastogi