The IAPM White Paper on Resource Management is available now!

18.07.2018 - Resource management as the supreme discipline in project management

Worldwide, the pressure to produce and innovate increases continuously. That circumstance also affects the information and telecommunications technology sector, among others. In order to remain competitive, companies must deploy their employees efficiently to avoid revising or inactivity.

This is where resource management comes into play, which is closely linked to skill management - which employees are available and what are their skills?

Resource management does not only offer these operational benefits, but also a clear strategic advantage: Project managers and managing directors already know at the planning stage what capacities are available in addition to various projects and daily business. Based on this planning, they can decide whether further projects will be accepted or whether their implementation is unrealistic. This avoids unnecessary costs and, above all, stress.


Resource management and skill management - the key to success?

The advantage of resource management is that staff planning managers know whether an employee is available for a project. The disadvantage is that this does not ensure that this employee has the right skills for the job. Therefore, the use of skill management is unavoidable. We are looking for employees who have free capacities at the desired times and at the same time meet the requirements that are important for this position. The combination of these two components guarantees an efficient project flow.

In a multi-project environment, finding a suitable project team member who is also available for the given period can be a challenge. The use of resource management software can be helpful.


Software solutions to support resource management

As resource planning with the help of "simple" programs such as Excel becomes more and more challenging once a certain project or company size has been reached. Due to this, errors can occur as a result, so it makes sense to use suitable software.
This software should at least represent the capacity utilization of the individual departments and their employees as well as the capacity utilization and capacity requirements from all projects. It is also important that all known base loads (e.g. processing e-mails) and absences (e.g. holidays, parental leave) are taken into account.

In order to take the skills of the employees into account at the same time, such software must also have the skills management mentioned above - because employees who are available but do not have the necessary skills (e.g. Java knowledge, language level) do not contribute to the success of a project.
 
Good resource management software can help to improve a company's market position permanently. As a software solution, we recommend Can Do, because it "supports project managers of medium-sized companies and corporations across all industries in the planning of projects while taking into account the availability and skills of employees," explains Roland Ottmann, PhD., Chairman of the Advisory Board and Deputy Chairman of the Board of the IAPM International Association of Project Managers.
 
Together with CanDo, we can now also present our new White Paper on Resource Management. We look forward to your feedback and suggestions.

You can download the White Paper Resource Management here free of charge.

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