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Resource Planning
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Use our resource planning software to balance team workload across tasks and
projects.

Planning resources effectively is essential for any successful

project, but it can be challenging. When you’re planning a project,
there are so many different elements that have to be accounted for like
employee schedules, equipment rentals, holidays and of ce space, just to
name a few. See how ProjectManager.com can help you distribute
resources, allocate workload and manage your projects better.

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When managing a project or a project portfolio, it’s critical that you intelligently
distribute resources and workload. Without proper resource allocation, projects can
quickly get out of control in terms of expense and duration.

With ProjectManager com and the right resource planning techniques you’ll be able
With ProjectManager.com and the right resource planning techniques, you ll be able
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to effectively plan and manage resources in any industry and set yourself up for
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success. But before we break down how ProjectManager.com is the perfect tool for
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resource planning and management, let’s get a rm understanding on what resource
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planning is and how to make a resource plan.
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What is Resource Planning?
What is resource planning? The short answer is that resource planning is the step in
writing a business plan where you identify all the resources in a proposed project.

Sounds simple enough. But to plan resources, you need to create a summary for
managing workload that is comprehensive enough to make sure all the resources
that you need to complete the project are clearly identi ed. This summary is going to
help you get buy-in from your sponsor and your team.

What are Resources?

Resources can be anything from equipment to project sites to people. Here’s a short
list of some resources you’ll have to identify when planning your project:

 Type of team you’ll need

 Roles and key responsibilities for each team member

 Number of people required to ll each role

 What equipment they’ll need and its purposes

 Job locations or meeting rooms required

 Types and number of equipment needed

 Total amount of material needed

All these can be entered and tracked in ProjectManager.com for more accurate
resource planning and management.
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How to Create a Resource Plan
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A resource plan has to:
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 Schedule the dates for using the planned resources. That includes when and for
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how long you’ll need the people assigned to your team, equipment rental, project
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site rental and anything else.
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 Identify the amount of resources required per project activity. Each day you’ll be
using many resources. Use this part of the plan to detail them on a daily basis.

 Create a detailed resource use schedule. Now take those durations and amounts
and collect them on a calendar or timeline to make sure you’ve allocated those
resources correctly.

In order to include all that information you want to have a process in place. Basically,
it’s a three-step process of listing, estimating and then constructing. You can
expedite this entire process if you use ProjectManager.com’s resource planning tools
to map out your project. But before you do that, let’s go through each of those steps
in more detail.

Step 1: List the Resources

Simply start a list in your project management software. Write down all the different
resources you’ll need. Use the above bullet points as a structure. Who do you need to
do the tasks that make up the project? Identify all of those roles. That includes full-
time, part-time and contractors.

Now, what about equipment? Do the same as you did with the labor, and identify all
the equipment you’re going to need to get the project completed. That list should
include anything from o ce equipment such as computers, photocopies and other
devices to telecommunications and machinery.

The next item on the list is the materials. What are the non-consumable materials
you’ll need to complete the project activities? These can be materials necessary to
build physical deliverables such as wood steel and concrete
build physical deliverables, such as wood, steel, and concrete.
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Step 2: Estimate How Many Resources
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Now you want to gure out how many of of the listed resources you’ll need
throughout the life cycle of the project. For example, how many hours are you going
to need from your team? Break that down per role. Do the same for your equipment.
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How many pieces of equipment are going to be necessary?
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The same goes with your material. Estimate what amount of material, in terms of
square footage, number of units, etc., is going to be necessary for the project. How
much hardware do you need to buy, and will you have to license software?

Get as accurate an estimate as you can, and enter that data into your project
management software. If possible, try to note the date the resources are needed and
what the consumption rate per day, week or month is. The more data you have, the
better you can allocate various resources.

Step 3: Construct a Resource Schedule

Use the information you’ve collected in the rst two steps to build a detailed resource
schedule in your workload management tool. You’ll want to specify the resources
required to complete the project, the time-frames for the consumption of each of
those resources and the quantity of time each resource is going to require per week
and/or month.

Then you want to add up the total quantity of resources consumed per week and/or
month. Don’t forget to identify the assumptions and constraints you feel are going to
arise over the life cycle of the project. Now that you’ve done these steps,
congratulations, you just made your resource plan in ProjectManager.com!

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ProjectManager.com Helps You Manage

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Planning out your resources is only the beginning. Once you execute the project
you’re going to have to monitor your resources and make sure they’re adhering to
your schedule and budget. Things are going to change over the course of the
project’s life cycle, which is going to put a strain on your resource plan.

This is where ProjectManager.com really excels. Our software is designed to manage

your resources easily and give you an accurate picture of the project’s progress, so
you know how to allocate those resources to avoid blocking team members or going
off schedule and over budget.

ProjectManager.com helps you:

 Better manage your team

 Make data-driven decisions

 Optimize resources in real time

See Where Your Resources are Allocated at Any Moment

With ProjectManager.com, you can see all the work across your team in one place
and on a single page. With a big-picture view of the schedule you’re able to know
what everyone in your team is doing, so you can schedule ahead, giving them the
right amount of work at the right time.
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This way if you need to assign more or less work to a team member you can easily do
so with a click of the keyboard. Just pick the day you want to reassign the task to,
and the number of hours you want to allocate to that task, and set it. This removes
the complexity from scheduling changes and helps you keep the project on track.

Resource Planning Is Color-Coded

By using color coding on the calendar you can see at a glance which of your
 y us g co o cod g o t e ca e da you ca see at a g a ce c o you
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resources are over-allocated and those who are idle. Also, another color indicates
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that a holiday or vacation day is coming. This is the information you need at your
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ngertips so you can plan ahead and allocate your resources more e ciently.
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Monitor in Real-Time
With ProjectManager.com, when your team updates their task status with their
percentage of completion or mark tasks as done, that data is instantly fed into your
dashboard, giving you the most accurate picture of the project to date.
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By viewing your team workload on the dashboard you get another window into
whether your resources are properly allocated or not. This gives you a heads-up on
balancing the workload so you don’t burn out team members or leave others idle.

Sharing Is Easy
You’re not managing resources in a vacuum. You’ll need to share data with both your
team and your sponsors. With ProjectManager.com you have access to a shared
tea a d you spo so s. t oject a age .co you a e access to a s a ed
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social page where team members can chat and attach project-related les. Or you
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You can also export whatever reports you create online or o ine in a variety of
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formats, such as Excel or CSV les. The ease of and simplicity of our PM tool makes
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resource management (the next step once you’ve done the resource planning) even
more e cient and the project more productive.

Resource Manage Software for Managers in Any Industry at Any Level

ProjectManager.com helps with resource planning and gives you all the tools you
need to best manage teams and resources through the life cycle of your project.
Because ProjectManager.com is a cloud-based PM tool, you get the real-time data
which allows you to make better decisions in terms of resource allocation. Start a
free 30-day trial today.

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