The Resource Management Life Cycle Resource Planning for 2013 Revised November 2012 http://epmlive.com
Contents Introduction...2 What is Resource Management?...2 Who Participates in Resource Management?...2 The Resource Management Life Cycle...4 Overview...4 Step 1 Resource Capacity Planning...6 Overview...6 Step 2 Resource Allocation...9 Overview...9 Step 3 Resource Work Management... 12 Overview... 12 Step 4 Resource Collaboration... 15 Overview... 15 Step 5 Resource Task Management... 20 Overview... 20 Conclusion... 22
Introduction Employees are the most valuable asset and the biggest expense for most organizations. Any organization that fails to manage their resources to ensure that sufficient capacity is available, and that they are being assigned and managed efficiently, risks losing control of its project and work costs and having its business activities seriously constrained. The ability to deploy employees effectively against often conflicting projects and other work priorities enables organizations to optimize their return on human resource investments. In order to maximize both task throughput and company morale, resource and project managers need an efficient system to place the appropriate staff on the right teams at the right time. The following topics will be included: Resource Capacity Resource Allocation Resource Work Management Resource Collaboration Resource Task Management For additional details about EPM Live and its resource management capabilities and features please visit EPM Live at http://epmlive.com. What is Resource Management? Before we get into all the various levels of resource management, let s touch on the basics. What is resource management? Wikipedia defines resource management as: Resource Management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization's resources when they are needed. The term resources does not always refer to human resources, but all resources that need to be considered when scheduling a project activity. For the purpose of this paper we are going to be referring to the management process for human resources and the five levels within it. Who Participates in Resource Management? Unlike some project management processes, in order to complete the resource management life cycle, all resources must play a role. Each part of the life cycle will be owned by one of the user roles below: Executive Management Executive Management will play a key role in identifying and selecting the RIGHT work and projects for the organization to execute. In many cases, Executive Management will only be involved in resource management from a reporting and analytics standpoint. For example, which projects and work to include in the business portfolio based on resource management metrics and data? PMO - In many organizations the PMO will be in charge of inputting resource data into the resource management tool. The PMO will play a key role in the first two steps in the resource management life cycle including planning resource roles and identifying which resources will fill them. Project Manager The project manager will be involved primarily with execution rather than the planning stage of resource management. Once the resources are assigned, the project manager will be accountable for resource performance. 2
Project Team The project team s role is to collaborate with each other to foster a positive team environment. Shared knowledge and expertise will be a critical factor in delivering work successfully. Team Member The team member s main role will be to get the work done! 3
The Resource Management Life Cycle Overview Let s take a look at the full resource management life cycle. As you can see in the graphic below, this is a top down approach to managing your resources. To truly accomplish full resource management within your organization, all areas must be considered and accommodated. That being said, it is always wise to consider organizational maturity as it relates to resource management. This ensures you are adopting the right amount of discipline and functionality at the right pace to ensure you are not introducing unnecessary risks. It is very common for users within your organization to be at different levels of maturity. One of the most important aspects of implementing and executing a new tool or discipline is that you understand your audience, their needs and their current processes in place today, to ensure that new technologies introduced will be easily adapted. EPM Live Resource Life Cycle For more information on the various levels of the resource management life cycle please visit http://epmlive.com/epm-live-features/resource-management/. Resource Capacity Planning - Capacity planning helps to ensure that resource capacity meets current and future business requirements in a cost-effective manner. Resource Allocation Resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration various components such as availability, schedule, and skillset. Resource Work Management Resource work management is the managing of all work activities including performance tracking, resource change management and resource reporting. 4
Resource Collaboration Resource collaboration allows teams to effectively work together in a positive, productive environment. Most importantly, resource collaboration helps to ensure that all resources are informed and on the same page. Resource Task Management In order to maximize efficiencies, there must be proper tools in place that ensure resources have work visibility across all the work to which they are assigned. Resource task management tools help resources get more work done and be more productive. 5
Step 1 Resource Capacity Planning Overview Capacity planning helps to ensure that resource capacity meets current and future business requirements in a cost-effective manner. In the Capacity planning stage you will need to identify all the roles needed for the given project or work effort at hand. For example, which organizations or departments will be involved in your project? This will help you establish the structure for your project, potentially establish how your tasks will be organized, and even identify security constraints. What disciplines and skill sets are required to complete your project? Without the proper skill sets and expertise particular tasks may require more training, longer term times, possibly even result in rework. Effective resource management relies on the fact that these factors have all been considered prior to selecting your resources. Once you have determined your generic roles, you will need to determine the quantity of each role needed as well as the timeframe. As this information is obtained, you will then be ready to analyze your plan, make adjustments and prepare for actual named assignments. Resource Capacity There are many PPM (Project and Portfolio Management) tools in the marketplace today that contain resource management capabilities. For the purpose of this paper we will be showing how EPM Live can help you with all of your resource management needs. The graphic below shows how EPM Live allows you to build resource plans against any work item or project. From within your project or work item, you can simply click edit capacity plan and your resource plan will be launched. You can then assign roles or generics to your project or work item. Associated with your role can be any other defined attribute such as the department field you see below. You can plan your resources using hours or FTEs. 6
Resource Capacity Planner Once your resource plan is created, you will be able to leverage EPM Live s resource analyzer to compare capacity vs. demand. You can also move projects around to create multiple scenarios, eliminate overallocations and define the most efficient project/work sequencing. Resource Analyzer If you are looking for a more visual presentation of resource capacity data, you can leverage resource capacity reports built directly in EPM Live to analyze your current resource needs and all potential risks associated. 7
Resource Report 8
Step 2 Resource Allocation Overview Now it s time to assign your project team. Before we do, we must look at all the factors involved in this process. Who is available and when are they available? What competencies or expertise do the resources possess? Have they worked on a similar project in the past and if so how well did they perform? Are they interested in working on the defined project and finally how much will it cost to obtain the resources for the project? In addition to the environmental factors a roles and responsibilities document should be completed prior to assigning resources. An organization chart will also aid in this process when determining the resource assignments and when viewing the preliminary project schedule to see when each resource is needed and for how long. In many cases, the project team members are known in advance. In other instances, you may need to be prepared to enter a negotiation process with functional managers or maybe even other project managers, should the resource be currently working on other projects. In this case, project priorities and benefits may be weighed to determine which project has the greater need for the requested resource. In many cases, if project teams are already over allocated, there may be a need to consider acquiring resources from a 3rd party vendor or consulting firm. You may also consider whether or not having a virtual team will be adequate for your resource management needs. After resources are assigned and confirmed, you will need to be prepared to manage all future changes that could potentially come into play to ensure your plan is flexible and scalable to handle unexpected shifts in resource demand and allocation. Resource Allocation 9
EPM Live offers tools to help you with every phase of the life cycle. After you have built your resource plan, you can now go in and match resources to your resource requirements to ensure that you have the RIGHT resources assigned to the work and that they have the availability to complete it. Within EPM Live, you can see the projects the resources are assigned to in your resource plan and how those project assignments are measuring against capacity. You can create multiple views to show the information that is important to you when making your allocation decisions. You can also view the % match information when determining how well resources fit into the initial resource requirements. Once you find a match, you can even begin resource negotiations with the resource s functional manager to proceed with the assignment process. Resource Requirement Matching EPM Live also contains many out of box resource reports to help you make more informed resource decisions. Find out the impacts to your current projects should you introduce a new project, move projects around or lose a resource during execution. 10
Resource Report 11
Step 3 Resource Work Management Overview Resource Work Management is an ongoing process in the resource management life cycle that begins with allocation and ends at the completion of the final project or work deliverable. This stage in the life cycle is typically managed by the project manager. This process includes managing all assignments, tracking team member performance, providing project feedback and status, resolving issues and risks, and coordinating changes to enhance project performance. All of these tools necessary for project execution and management are also essential to your resources. As with any work or project deliverable, time, resources and costs must all be considered together in order to effectively and successfully deliver a project. Resource Work Management At the highest level, you can take any work item or task and utilize various resource tools to ensure your resources are available. Once assigned, you can also check resources for over allocation and adjust assignments where needed. 12
Resource Tools If you are using Microsoft Project to assign your resources, you can leverage EPM Live s Project Publisher tool to take your schedules, built in Microsoft Project, and publish them directly to SharePoint. For less complex projects, you can use EPM Live s online planner tool to create your tasks directly in EPM Live. EPM Live Project Publisher 13
You can also leverage EPM Live s resource planner to combine resource workload on both project and non-project work in a single dynamic view. All resource assignments in this view can be created through a Microsoft project schedule, EPM Live s online planner, or any list in SharePoint. This allows Resource Managers and Project Managers to have a true picture of resource workload across all their projects and work items. You can also view resource availability by time-phase, perform what-if analysis on resource workload and availability, and group resources by various attributes such as department, skill, role, etc. Resource Plan (Assignments) Once again, if you are looking for a more visual presentation of resource data, you can leverage resource capacity reports to analyze your current resource assignments and all potential risks associated. Resource Report 14
Step 4 Resource Collaboration Overview Resource collaboration is a key practice in the way organizations work today. Working together to deliver project and work deliverables that otherwise may not be reached by working alone, allows organizations to streamline work, deliver services and increase overall productivity across the organization. Resource collaboration is a critical stage in resource management. If your resources aren t communicating and they aren t working towards a shared understanding of goals, carefully putting together a resource plan pre-execution will be less productive. Resources must communicate in order to keep projects and work on track. When defining the tools to implement for resource management, ease of use and flexibility are essential to ensure high user adaption and effective collaboration. Resource Collaboration EPM Live has pre-built SharePoint project workspace templates that help teams manage all project work in one central location. These collaboration workspaces are available for various verticals and multiple methodologies to ensure there is a solution that is right for every team. These templates bring best practice project and work collaboration disciplines to all team members and ensure that all teams have the tools needed to keep control of deliverables, and help ensure successful delivery on all work items. 15
Project Workspace Schedules can be updated and shared for familiar, easy to use schedule collaboration. Schedules can be updated directly in your EPM Live environment with team member status updates and then fed back to your Microsoft Project schedule. You can also share your EPM Live online planner schedules for the same easy to use collaboration. Team members can easily update all of their work in one central location for even more efficient collaboration. My Work View 16
Team members can also set up alerts to automatically stay informed of all task assignments, changes and updates via email. Email Alerts If team members are accustomed to working in Outlook, EPM Live has an Outlook integration that will allow team members to create work items right in Outlook that will automatically be created in SharePoint. All updates to this work item can be tracked in both locations. EPM Live also has other collaboration tools that can be leveraged for team communication, such as Blogs, Wikis and Comments. Outlook Integration 17
Teams can also use EPM Live timesheets to update % complete and actual hours in one location making time reporting and statusing a simple, centralized task. Any work item or list item in SharePoint can be added to timesheets. Project managers can then use that information to update their schedules and keep all teams updated with current status and potential risks. EPM Live Timesheets All lists that contain critical tasks or work items can be rolled up from all of your SharePoint sites and shared in one location regardless of the type of work. This gives teams first hand visibility into current status or state of all work assigned to their team, making collaboration with team members even easier. 18
Issue Roll Up Project managers can leverage the out of box status report to report on overall status, upcoming tasks and issues and to automate project or work reporting. Status Report 19
Step 5 Resource Task Management Overview The last level of the resource management life cycle focuses on those accountable for individual work items. We all have project work or various work items that we must complete and most likely that work is combined with our own personal to do list as well. In order to be the most productive, resources need a tool that will handle all of their work tasks and any personal tasks they may have in one location. In EPM Live you can do just that. Gather your work, update your work and monitor all related work and dependencies in one system. Resource Task Management Once again, take a look at the my work view below. All work in this view is rolled up from all SharePoint sites within your EPM Live environment. My Work allows team members to create, view, update and even drill into any work item assigned to them. Team members can view the work by project, by work type or they can even create their own view to see the work organized in whatever format works best for them. As they update their work, the updates will be applied to the actual work item instantly regardless of where it sits in your SharePoint infrastructure. 20
My Work View Team members can also manage their own alerts to trigger automated emails for any work list in EPM Live. Email Alerts 21
Conclusion So, as you can see, executing resource management effectively within your organization can bring many benefits. To learn more about how EPM Live can accommodate your resource management needs, please contact EPM Live at info@epmlive.com or visit the EPM Live website at http://epmlive.com. EPM Live Website 22