A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO

Resource Allocation
Brought to you by Polaris, the world’s first self-driving
Professional Services Automation.
 Table of Contents

01
What is Resource Allocation?

02
Importance of Resource Allocation

03
Challenges Associated With Resource Allocation

04
Significance of Resource Allocation in Project Management

06
How to Allocate Resources While Managing a Project?

06
How To Allocate Resources To Projects In A Smarter Way

09
Improved Resource Allocation Means Reinforced Bottom Line

2
As a business leader, project manager, or team lead, you
need to allocate resources wisely to every project. After
all, when you are operating a company, the core goal is to
achieve growth and success. And the best way to support
your business goals, growth, and continuous success is by
utilizing your resources efficiently. Remember, regardless of
the size of your company, your resources are a significant
part of your business.
No organization has an unlimited pool of resources from
which they can select a resource and assign to any project/
task. You need to consider various aspects like resource
availability, skillset, rate, etc. to ensure your projects are
completed on time and within budget. You need to make
sure that the skills and competencies of your resources are
not misused for the wrong projects/tasks. To enhance overall
business efficiency and profitability, you need to strategically
allocate your resources to a project in a manner that gives
you an advantage.

What is Resource Allocation?

Simply put, resource allocation is the strategic assignment of available resources to projects or tasks to optimize effort
utilization and reduce costs. While a resource can be an employee, property, machine, software, or money, we will focus on
how organizations can capitalize on their people through optimized allocation. With the right resource allocation strategies,
companies can ensure that their resources are not under or overutilized, and are rightly placed as per their skills, availability,
and project timelines. Correct resource allocation helps organizations maximize their utility and improve customer and
employee satisfaction.

3
 Importance of Resource Allocation

Adequate resource allocation is an integral part of your

business. To perform project tasks more efficiently and
Benefits of effective resource allocation include:
effectively, both businesses and their employees require
the right tools and resources to succeed. • Improved employee and customer satisfaction

The way you allocate resources is one of the crucial factors • Zero workplace stress
in determining whether the project will be successful or
not. Resources are key to the performance and operations • Enhanced efficiency
of any organization. Without proper allocation and
• Better employee retention percentage
planning, things can get out of hand. For example, in an IT
service firm, let’s say you assign a Java-related project to • Decreased time spent on tasks
an employee who is an expert in C language. Due to the
skill-work mismatch,the employee will not be able to do the • On-time achievement of targets

task perfectly, which can further lead to employee burnout,

poor performance, missed deadlines, and failed projects.

Challenges Associated With Resource Allocation

In today’s world, change is the only constant. You need
to be always ready for dynamic allocation of resources
to get projects completed successfully. However, without
knowing how your resources are placed, it isn’t easy to
take control of any situation. And identifying the right
resource without the right tools can be an overwhelming
task.
Your resources are allocated to multiple active projects
in your organization, at a given point of time. Meaning,
one resource is working on more than one project
simultaneously. This means managers should have
access to information about each resource when a new
project comes in. Without real-time insights into resource
availability, managers might end up under or over utilizing
resources, or may procure resources at a higher rate,
impacting the project costs directly. Therefore, an up-
to-date resource availability list is required to meet the
changing deadlines and accommodate new projects.
Also, no matter how diligently the scope and timelines
of a project are fixed at the start of a project, there is
always a risk of scope creep. A few of the things that
can frequently change when it comes to any project
is the timeline, scope, or budget. If the timelines or
scope of a project changes, it is possible that you must
add up or take away some resources to meet the new
demand. This type of change can throw the entire
project off track, if required resources are not available
immediately.
However, if you have planned the resource allocation
process carefully with a proper strategy, then you’ll be
able to get through this smoothly. All you need to do is
allocate those resources to a project who can catch up
with the new project changes.

4
 Significance of Resource Allocation in Project Management
In today’s global economy, with an increasing number of
projects and shrinking budgets, project managers need to
do more than just plan for a few resources and projects.
With the commencement of any project, the primary task
is to manage projects in the best way they can. And one
of the essential parts of efficient project management is
resource allocation. However, allocating the right resources
to the right projects is not easy.
When done right, resource allocation can provide many
benefits in project management – from significantly
reducing project budget to maximizing productivity
and profitability, enhancing employee and customer
satisfaction, and more. If a resource allocated to a project
does not have the desired set of skills, the project will most
probably fail or be delayed.
The process requires managers to be familiar with the
skills of the available resources. Resource allocation is
much more than just assigning resources to projects as
it plays a crucial role in project management and further
improves business performance. Planning and utilizing
resources well helps achieve optimal resource utilization
and improves ROI.
This makes resource allocation all the more important
in project management. Resource allocation helps
schedule ahead of time, have better visibility into
projects and a clear understanding of the team’s
capabilities and progress, while analyzing upcoming
threats and project risks. As a result, with proper
resource allocation, you can control work overload and
contribute to the team’s effectiveness at work.
5
 How to Allocate Resources While Managing a Project?

One of the main triggers that causes project failures is
resource dependencies and inefficient resource allocation.
How projects and resources are planned and allocated
makes a huge difference between the success and failure of
a project. And planning and allocating resources is a one-
time job. It tends to vary with the changes in the projects,
conditions, and scope. Therefore, you need to be careful
while allocating them in the right way, when managing
multiple projects or multiple changes in a given project.
Here is what you should do correctly to allocate resources:
• Understand the project’s scope: It is essential to clearly
understand what the project is all about, as it will help you
ascertain what will be required to complete the project.
• Identify your resource pool: Secondly, for successful
project completion, you must have complete knowledge
about the skills of your resources. This is important
because only when you have clarity about the strengths
and abilities of your resources, you will be able to align
them properly as per the project requirements. Otherwise,
imagine what will happen if you assign software
development work to a finance professional resource.
• Keep track of time and workload: As a project manager,
you should always keep an eye on how the time is being
utilized for completing a project. It is your responsibility
to make sure that the project is completed on or before
the due date, and on time. You also need to ensure that
your resources are not overloaded with work. Take help of
project tools that can give you real-time insights into every
piece of project data and monitor progress continually.

You should also collect and analyze the data and insight to better plan and manage future projects. In addition, it will help
you make projects successful by accurately estimating different metrics related to resources and projects.

How To Allocate Resources To Projects In A Smarter Way

Real-time visibility into resource availability is the key to
effective resource allocation. Before starting any new
project, you need to identify available resources with their
respective skill sets and then assign them to a project. With
the right tools in place, it’s now more accessible and more
straightforward than ever to keep track of resources
and deliver successful projects. Here is how Polaris PSA
can help you accurately allocate resources quickly and
efficiently:
6
Real-Time Visibility:

Polaris PSA is an enterprise-ready, configurable, and scalable solution that provides a comprehensive picture of global
resources along with the details of their existing and upcoming allocation levels, including their departments, location, skill
sets, competencies, etc. It can also help you will also identify when the subsequent availability of resources.

Modernize Resource Planning:

Our resource management software can be easily integrated with your current CRM. This will help you sense incoming
demand from sales opportunities and start early conversations with stakeholders. You can also search for resources
within minutes, based on their availability, skills, location, or other criteria. Based on the historical project information,
Polaris can help you can create accurate project timelines and resource requirements.

7
Allocate the Right Resource for Every Project:

The critical aspect of maximizing profitability is to utilize resources effectively. However, it is impossible to optimize
productivity and efficiency without real-time insights into resource availability, certifications, and individual skill set.

You can overcome this with Polaris PSA’s SmartMatch, an AI-powered resource allocation engine. SmartMatch is designed
to automatically suggest the best resource for your requirement, while considering all the requirements. You will also
gain complete control over resources, schedules, and costs that directly impact profitability. This will help you make more
informed decisions about whom to allocate to which projects, and drastically decrease planning time.

Maximize Utilization:

Use Polaris’ graphical representation capability to easily spot under and overutilized resources in real-time. It provides
a report on the utilization of different resources by various dimensions, with dynamic charts and graphs. Polaris will also
help you optimize resource costs based on the cost of available resources and assignment locations. You can quickly
shift resources from non-billable to billable tasks and lower bench time by identifying open assignments that fit your
resources’ skill sets..

8
 Improved Resource Allocation Means Reinforced Bottom Line

Every organization is looking for ways to enhance its any risk before it can potentially harm your business.
bottom line and profitability. To meet the clients’ demands
Intelligent resource allocation will help you thrive—
and finish projects within time, organizations are spending
more importantly, achieve operational excellence.
substantial amounts of effort and money – from hiring the
Providing an environment to your employees that
right resource to training their current employees. There is
offers self-development, skill-building, and staying
no denying that untracked resource time and activities lead
updated with the current trends, will encourage them
to the loss of thousands of hours and billions of dollars in
to contribute their 100% to the project. This will happen
productivity.
because employees will feel more responsible and take
Inaccurate or ineffective resource allocation is one of ownership of their job. Resource managers will also be
the major reasons organizations fail badly. Resource able to manage their resources more effectively, and
allocation should be regularly monitored and aligned in improve overall bottom-line results.
today’s volatile world. More intelligent resource allocation
When resources are allocated effectively, they can be a
also allows you to meet project objectives in a timely
key driver of ideas and innovation for your organization
manner, without being bothered about budget overrun.
and help you achieve profitability. With zero errors and
A meticulously crafted resource allocation framework will
increased employee turnout, you will always get higher
also help you foresee upcoming threats and challenges
results and reduced underperformance.
and mitigate them. As a result, you can efficiently plan to
analyze future threats, identify project gaps, and eliminate

About Polaris
Polaris, the world’s first Self-driving PSA, has created a new category for Professional Services
Automation. For the first time, leaders get intelligent help with decision making as Polaris does
the heavy lifting, analyzes real-time data, and delivers live recommendations on the best possible
choices for them to decide from. Polaris is created by the team at Replicon, the Time Intelligence
company, with over 25 years of industry leadership in enterprise time tracking. Replicon supports
thousands of customers across 70 countries, including PwC, SAS, NTT, NSC Global, Omnicom,
and Aon.

To learn more, visit www.polarispsa.com

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