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Why skill and resource management are indispensable in project management

Due to the progressive spread of project-oriented, multidisciplinary work, resource management in project management is becoming an important success factor in the entire company. Because only those who are able to implement projects "in time, budget and quality" in the long term with the right project management software can survive.

The correct use of resources is a key success factor for successful projects. Conversely, the wrong use of resources - insufficient or even the wrong resources - is one of the most common reasons why projects fail. Many studies and textbooks rightly describe resource management as the supreme discipline in project management. 

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What is resource management?

By definition, resource management includes

  • Resource planning including the
  • Identification and
  • allocation of adequate resources. It also includes the
  • Optimization of the use of resources and the continuous
  • Monitoring and
  • Management of resources (IPMA Competence Baseline).

 

Why it is important that you choose the right tool for resource management

The basic prerequisite for a smooth, successful implementation of resource management processes is the choice of the right tool for carrying out resource management.


Who does what when?


This question is at the centre of capacity planning and thus at the heart of resource management in companies, whether for work in individual departments or in interdisciplinary projects.

The reason for using an overarching resource management tool is therefore the optimized utilization of all departments and teams and their individual members.

 

 

Where can a resource management software offer you added value?

If you use a resource management software for agile, hybrid project management and multi-project management, you will solve many problems. The most important ones are:

Lack of a central resource pool
Your planning is only complete when all employees, if possible also all external employees, are recorded in a central resource pool and distributed from there. Working with several isolated solutions is doomed to failure, at the latest when several interdisciplinary projects have to be implemented simultaneously with the same employees.

Lack of consideration of base loads
Answering e-mails and settling travel expenses are activities that are referred to as basic workload. Realistic models assume that employees spend around 20% of their time neither on activities in their departments nor on project work. Holistic capacity planning takes this into account, as well as holiday-related and other absences such as further training. Some "surprise" holidays have already jeopardized an entire project.

Existence of outdated project plans
In the rarest of cases, projects go exactly as planned. Projects have a certain dynamic and are completely normal. It is important that your project plan always reflects the latest state of knowledge and takes all actual values such as time feedback into account.

Lack of attention to line activities
Employees from the individual departments are increasingly involved in overarching projects. You need to know to what extent the individual specialists are available to you for the project. It is important that you can immediately see what capacities the individual departments can provide for projects - and ideally you can also see what skills these employees can bring to your project.

Individual planning of projects
If projects are only considered individually - and not in combination with other projects - many risks, bottlenecks and overlaps in resource management remain undiscovered in planning. Conflicts with parallel running projects only arise during the project. A solution is then usually costly or at the expense of the other projects. Therefore, a comprehensive multi-project planning is indispensable.

Lack of knowledge about effort and deadlines
At the beginning of a project it is rare to know all the details. Details such as "effort 30-40 hours" or "end of 3rd quarter 2020" are more the rule than the exception. Apparent accuracy leads to a lack of acceptance of the system and to a high maintenance effort. Therefore planning with realistic, inaccurate values is a good alternative for you.

Combination of classic and agile project planning
Agile project management brings with it a new way of thinking and a new way of working, which positively changes the cooperation in the project teams and in the company. However, agile planning in teams is rarely designed with foresight and initially leads to more difficult resource management in IT.

From now on, every project will be a successful project!

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Resource Management and Skill Management as the basis for digitization

The development or further development and implementation of a digitization strategy is the core task of every company. Innovation topics should be managed centrally so that the organizational change of a company can be carried out seamlessly. In order to achieve this, your business model must be aligned with the market and the prevailing customer requirements.

On the other hand the implementation depends on the availability and skills of a sufficient number of qualified employees.

Digitalisierung_Glaskugel

 

Planning on a greenfield site - a fallacy!

From this constellation - market orientation and at the same time resource orientation - it becomes clear that a new digital business model cannot de facto be developed independently of existing framework conditions.

But the good news is that you can actively shape these framework conditions. The focus is on people and their abilities. 

In the beginning, you need to take stock of the strengths of your company and the availability and skills of your employees. Ideally, your company has already set up a central employee pool and a central, up-to-date skills library in which the skills of your employees are collected.

With the establishment of a central resource and skills pool, you will have an overview of the quality of your company (skills) and the amount in which this quality is available (capacity of skills).

Please note that skills are usually needed in combination with other skills. This results in significant limitations in the availability (capacity) of skills.

Modern resource management tools as a component of project management tools are able to solve this combination problem in skill-based resource management for you and give you a realistic overview of the skill capacities (also combinations) available in your company.

In other words: resource management made easy!

 

Intelligent resource planning with Can Do

Intelligent resource management is one of the central tasks of modern project management. Thanks to the Watermodel® algorithm developed in-house, Can Do offers a unique, dynamic capacity balancing process that enables optimum staff deployment. For resource planning, Can Do uses realistic - i.e. inaccurate - values such as "effort 20 to 25 person days".

Part-time employment contracts, holidays and coffee breaks are also taken into account and planned as so-called base load in Can Do's resource management software.

With Staffer®, Can Do offers another useful feature, as the line organization is integrated into the project management software. The coordination process in resource planning between project and line is significantly simplified.

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