Why Is Project Resource Management Important for the Successful Delivery?

Gartner quotes, “Leaders must enable careful initiative prioritization, prevent resource overload, and promote flexible completion timing to maximize value delivery.”This proves that resources are vital in completing a project within time and budget.

However, the inability to manage and utilize the resources efficiently leads to several roadblocks, such as higher costs, low performance, project delays, employee burnout, and more.

So, the pertinent question is- How can resources be optimally utilized?

Effective project resource management helps managers ensure competent allocation and optimal utilization of resources to maintain a healthy resource index and boost profitability.

This blog discusses the importance of project resource management and how Saviom’s resource management tool can help achieve your business goals.

Let’s dive in to know more:

1. What is Project Resource Management?

Project resource management is a process of identifying, scheduling, and allocating your organization’s resources – people, tools, materials, technology, and facilities, efficiently and effectively. It also ensures resources are effectively utilized on various project tasks for timely delivery within the stipulated budget.

To better understand project resource management, here is an example:

An IT Project Manager (PM)is starting a project that requires programmers, testers, etc., with diverse skill sets. With legacy tools like spreadsheets, the process of estimating resources, requesting the same to resource managers, identifying, and allocating becomes tedious.

With proper resource management in place, the PM estimates the total resources and skills required and then places the request to the resource manager. The resource managers will then look into the resource pool or hiring channels to identify the right programmers, testers, etc., and propose the same to the project manager.

Once the project and resource managers come into an agreement regarding the resources, they will be allocated to projects. Later, the project manager will assign these IT resources to various tasks and ensure the effective utilization of resources.

Apart from these, project resource management offers several other benefits to an organization.

2. Top 7 benefits of project resource management

Efficient project resource management offers numerous benefits for businesses. Let’s take a look at them:

2.1 Minimizes project resourcing costs significantly

An efficient resource management process enables resource managers to identify and allocate the right resources to projects. It also helps resource managers choose the right workforce across matrix boundaries at a low cost.

In addition, it also allows managers to allocate skilled junior resources to projects instead of expensive senior employees. Thus, allocating the best-fit low-cost resources to the right project helps reduces project resourcing costs significantly.

2.2 Foresee shortage/ excess of resources ahead of time

The resource management process enables managers to foresee the resource requirement for pipeline projects in advance and fulfill resource requirements proactively. This also helps to identify shortages and excess resources ahead of time and implement remedial measures to bridge the gap.

In case of resource shortages, they can hire a permanent or contingent workforce depending on project tenure and the nature of the skillset required. Additionally, the existing workforce can be upskilled to improve billability. Similarly, managers can bring forward project timelines or sell excess capacity at a lesser charge-out rate if there is resource excess.

2.3 Enables seamless allocation of skilled resources

Allocating the right resource with a competent skill set is essential to deliver projects within time and budget. The resource management process provides complete visibility of the workforce which enables them to identify and allocate the best-fit resources to the project based on the selection benchmarks.

As a result, the workforce can be evenly distributed across multiple projects rather than on one project. In addition, it also helps prevent over and under-allocation of resources which ultimately ensures higher productivity and successful project delivery.

2.4 Optimizes billable utilization of every resource

Suboptimal resource utilization adversely affects employee productivity, performance,morale and hinders project progress. Besides, suboptimal utilization often results in unplanned attrition. Resource forecasting helps managers gain foresight into employee utilization and implement corrective measures to optimize their usage.

For instance, if employees spend more time on non-billable activities like administration, training, etc., they can be deployed to billable activities by identifying the right project or task. Similarly, if they are overutilized, managers can add more similar-skilled resources to the projects or adjust the timeline to reduce the workload.

2.5 Future proofs workforce against market volatility

Organizations must develop a skilled workforce to meet future market demands and build the skills for their business needs. Therefore, futureproofing the workforce becomes the need of the hour. With efficient resource management and capacity planning, managers can identify skill gaps and facilitate upskilling and training initiatives.

It gives them an opportunity to build secondary and tertiary skills along with their primary ones. In addition, managers can also provide on-the-job training and shadowing opportunities for partial skills resources. This helps employees diversify their skill set and gain the latest industry knowledge, thus futureproofing the workforce.

2.6 Improves decision-making with real-time BI

The lack of data-driven insights into resources can cause issues such as the inability to identify skill gaps and incompetent allocation. This can lead to compromised work quality, project delays, budget overruns, etc.

Business intelligence in resource management enables real-time reports like utilization, availability, forecast vs. actual, capacity vs. demand, project vacancy, bench reports, etc. Through the reports, stakeholders can capture real-time data on each resource, which helps them make informed and strategic decisions.

2.7 Ensures on-time project delivery within the budget

Timely delivery of projects within the stipulated budget is crucial for ensuring client satisfaction and retention. With resource management, managers can gain foresight into pipeline projects and identify and bridge the capacity vs. demand gap in advance and allocate the right resources to tasks.

In addition, managers can also track and monitor if resources are over/underutilized and implement corrective measures to optimize utilization levels and enhance productivity. Since competent resources are working on projects and are optimally utilized, it ensures the timely completion of deliverables within the budget.

Now that the key benefits of project resource management are clear let’s look at how SAVIOM’s resource management tool can help.

3. How can resource management software optimize your workforce?

Saviom’s resource management software helps the seamless allocation and utilization of business resources effectively. It also optimizes your workforce to enhance productivity and performance in any assigned project. Some of the exclusive features of the software are:

It provides 360-degree visibility into resource information like skills, experience, qualifications, availability, demand, and other metrics. This also helps managers to allocate resources effectively.

The dynamic forecasting and capacity planning feature helps foresee the shortage/excess of resources and take applicable measures to bridge the gap between capacity and demand.

Real-time BI offers customizable portals, reports, and dashboards. The various reports help in understanding the utilization of resources, variances in cost, project vacancies, and more. For example, the forecast vs. actual reports provides data on the variances in cost, time, utilization, etc. With the vacancy reports, you can check the project openings and the bench reports help you to fill vacancies with relevant resources from the bench. This allows the stakeholders to make informed and strategic decisions.

4. Conclusion

Managing resources in a project can be daunting, but by using the right tools and techniques, you can complete your project profitably. In addition, the umpteen benefits offered by resource management software will ensure that your resources are efficiently and effectively utilized. So, would you like to explore resource management software to manage your resources efficiently? Try Saviom!