Your project won't do itself. And if it's big, you can't do everything yourself. You need resources. But how many people (and how much material and equipment) do you need? I'll explain how to determine resource needs for your next project.

The biggest challenges in project resource management are doing things “right”:
• The right resources…
• in the right quantities…
• with the right specifications, quality standards or with the right skills…
• in the right place…
• In the right time.

This points to a number of challenges:
• Availability
• Assessment
• Conflicting obligations
• Balancing workload (for people)
• Delivery
• Timed coordination

The four steps are:
1. Understand the activities required to implement your project
2. Derive resource requirements from activities
3. Use your resources for the activities
4. Balance your resource consumption to optimize your efficiency

1. Understand the activities required to implement your project
For each activity, you can list the type of skills required and the period (duration) for which you need them.

2. Derive resource requirements from activities
You will need to match this with ability assessments, which may include the skill or experience levels you require or prefer.
For the duration, you need to understand the art of estimating and you know what? Yes, we have videos and tutorials

3. Use your resources for the activities
Assign those resources to the task. There are some great tools to help you do this, including:
• RACI diagram for assigning people to key roles
• Linear Responsibility Chart – LRC (also called Resource Allocation Matrix – RAM)
• Work package descriptions – to help with accountability when assigning people to activities
• Resource structure plan for allocating resources (materials and fixed assets) to WBS tasks
• Organizational structure plan for allocating human resources to WBS tasks
• Plan the use of resources in conjunction with your main project plan

4. Balance your resource consumption to optimize your efficiency
To achieve the most efficient resource allocation, you need to balance their usage through resource smoothing and resource leveling.

Note that the steps for applying and balancing resources are iterative. You will rarely get the best allocation on the first pass. This includes:

Resource planning: Place activities in the timeline to optimize the use of the resources assigned to them.

Resource smoothing: Shift resource usage to different points in the schedule to use it more efficiently, with the schedule as the priority.

Resource leveling: Spread out the duration to avoid overloading resources, improving the speed and efficiency of delivery with resource utilization as your priority. (We have a video)

Once you have completed the planning, you can start delivering your project and actively managing your project resources.

recommended videos
Carefully curated video recommendations for you:
What is:
– a work package? https://youtu.be/-Dyyt5bCE8o
– a project structure plan – WBS? https://youtu.be/akO2Lf1fHmM
– Resource leveling? https://youtu.be/IvN6kyMUe3Q
– a RACI diagram? https://youtu.be/i9J_1N3-ibg
– a linear responsibility diagram? https://youtu.be/eEHts0tKXog
How to Estimate Project Costs: A Cost Estimating Method https://youtu.be/YQ2Wi3Jh3X0

A while ago I asked project managers in some forums what material things they needed for their work as project managers. The answers were great. I compiled their answers in a kit list.
https://kit.co/MikeClayton/what-a-project-manager-needs
Please note that the links are affiliate links.

For more great project management videos please subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMZfp1_wquyegVY9SoER0Nw?sub_confirmation=1

All of our great articles and resources on project management can be found on the OnlinePMCourses website: https://onlinepmcourses.com/

Basic Management Courses – free training on YouTube with 2 new management lessons per week – can be found on our sister channel Management Courses: http://youtube.com/c/managementcourses

You can find more of our project management videos in thematic collections in our free academy of project management: https://onlinepmcourses.com/free-academy-of-project-management/

#Project #Projectmanagement #Resourcerequirements

Please take the opportunity to connect with your friends and family and share this video with them if you find it useful.