Better Resource Management

Better Resource Management

Often project resource management issues surface when we undertake operational review. A common key finding is that there is often no consistent method or capacity to record all the project work going on within your organisation, or which tasks or projects people are working on. This is important because organisations need to stay focussed on resourcing their priority commitments so that they achieve their strategic objectives. And without knowing what people may be available and if they are working on the highest priority work, your organisation may be exposed. This paper explores the resource management issues, possible root causes, potential adverse impacts, proposed solution approach and the achievable benefits available to organisations.

1.      Resource Management Challenges

Problem Statement: “Demand for ICT capability outstrips our people, funding and industry capacity.”

Most program and project delivery organisations have a need to understand and demonstrate how their resources are applied to supporting strategic objectives. Most organisations form up teams to take business priorities through investment decisions, project delivery, in-service support and finally disposal. Your staff ? and industry partners ? are likely allocated to Project and In-Service teams in a variety of capacities. Many organisations implement a Portfolio Plan to help Executives articulate the priority and level of funding allocated for delivery of programs, projects, and in-service support.

Demand management is a planning methodology used to forecast, plan for, and manage the demand for products and services. Good demand management includes a defined set of processes, capabilities, and recommended behaviours. Effective demand management follows the concept of a "closed loop" where feedback from the results of the demand plans is fed back into the planning process to improve the predictability of outcomes. Changes to demand is recognised as a significant management issue due to its impact on future plans and forecasts.

Supply processes – your available resources ? need to be managed to deliver prioritised best value according to the demand of your customers ? as ultimately represented in your Portfolio Plan.

The following figure provides an illustration of demand and supply.

 2.      Root Causes of Poor Demand Management

What may be some root causes to poor demand management in your organisation?

·        Poor understanding of all the demands being asked of your team

·        Poor understanding of impact of demand on your resources. That is, what resources are needed to meet future demand?

·        Your organisation may have difficulty knowing if it can meet customer priorities

·        Poor project delivery and in-service planning

·        Inaccurate demand estimation for proposed work

·        Inadequate processes for managing handover of commitments between investment approval gates, programs/projects and on into sustainment

·        Resources may be ‘hoarded’ and under utilised

·        Changes to resource requirements are not managed holistically.

3.      Root Causes of Poor Supply Management

What may be some root causes to poor supply management in your organisation?

·        Lack of a concise list of all capacity (supply) available from you and your key suppliers or partners

·        Lack of supply resource profile baselines

·        Lack of skilled people, processes, and platforms

·        Your Executive has difficulty obtaining accurate information inform investment decisions, prioritisation, and adaption

·        Inconsistent project delivery and in-service planning

·        Inaccurate supply management

·        Inadequate process for managing handovers between investment approval gates, programs/projects and on into sustainment

·        Resources are not handed back for reallocation after they are no longer needed

·        Resource changes are not tracked or adequately managed

·        Inadequate resource feedback mechanisms.

4.      Impact of Not Addressing Resource Management

Should your organisation be unable to address resource demand and supply management several adverse consequences may emerge:

·        Inability to know what people are working on – resulting in over and under utilisation

·        Poor alignment of resources to tactical and strategic priorities

·        Resource ‘bottlenecks’ cannot be easily identified. For example. Do we have access to enough procurement people to shift work to industry? Do we have enough Security Specialists to approve compliance of our project pipeline?

·        Future skill requirements cannot be predicted

·        Inability to compare priorities from across the organisation

·        Encourages resource ‘warehousing’ to protect future delivery

·        Project and In-service resource requirements are under or over estimated

·        Low levels of agility and adaptability

·        Inability to be confident of meeting commitments to you customers.

5.      The Plan to Address the Root Causes

PMLogic’s plan to address the root causes identified earlier in this paper is based on implementing our Five Success Principles (5Ps) and DELIVER approach. The following figure provides an illustration of PMLogic’s 5Ps and our DELIVER approach:

Our 5Ps and DELIVER Approach

PMLogic are specialists in adaptive strategy, innovation, transformations, and agile project delivery. We have supported many commercial and government organisations develop strategic plans and establish program delivery models aligned to these plans.

Our proposed approach for solving resource management in your organisation draws on our experience in similar engagements in private and public sectors. The PMLogic team will work closely with your executives and key stakeholders to deliver this work.

During PMLogic engagements we adhere to our 5Ps. The 5Ps are based on leading practices combined with our experience. They are designed to ensure alignment of our assignment to your resource management strategic objectives.

Our 5 Success Principals as applied to this type of engagement are:

Purpose – ensuring your organisation’s vision for resource management is clear, understood, and shared. So that everyone is aligned and constructively contributing to achievement of the right outcomes

People – transferring knowledge to your people through expert support, coaching, and training. We will seek to upskill and reskill people so they can embrace the new resource management directions and successfully deliver your new improved resource management approach

Practices – capturing and embedding knowledge in new improved resource management practices through known processes and ways of working that address the root causes detailed above

Platform – digitising your resource management work to reduce effort and cost, improve quality and consistency, and reduce risk to not achieving quality resource management outcomes and benefits

Performance – measure your resource management performance against the Purpose and Vision. PMLogic introduce lead-based metrics, so you can be confident that the changes being introduced through the resource management improvement project are on track to deliver the required results.

For these kinds of engagements, we leverage PMLogic’s proven DELIVER approach. The approach is divided into two phases. The first phase of the project is to undertake Discovery, Examination and Learning:

Discover and diagnose the issues and opportunities using proven techniques including establishing a working group, interviews, and review of existing materials, strategies and policies.

Examine the opportunities and gaps by linking issues/opportunities to the changes/solutions needed to achieve the benefits. Then prioritise this backlog of work ? based on the value and risk/reward - to your appetite for change.

Learn from what has worked before by listening to your peers, staff, and customers ? as well as bringing in our experience working with other agencies, reviewing research and from our formal education or certifications. By understanding similar historical challenges and using lessons learned from past events we will be able to tailor the resource management intervention to the needs of your organisation.

The output from undertaking these three steps will be a more detailed analysis of the problem and a defined set of practical recommendations designed to remediate the resource management gaps and provide your organisation with an actionable and practical high-level roadmap.

The second phase of the project will be to Implement, Validate, Evaluate and Reinforce the changes in accordance with the high-level roadmap:

Implement the resource management changes using a holistic, adaptive, and iterative approach ? focusing on achieving the right outcomes and benefits for your organisation. Define clear and measurable links from tasks up through the project to support your organisation’s strategic goals. Document the interdependencies, outcomes and benefits that need to be managed through the life of the implementation project.

Validate the effectiveness of the project through feedback forms, reporting, health checks and reviews. Answering the question: “Are we doing the right things?” to remediate the identified resource management gaps.

Evaluate the project on a regular basis learning where changes and improvements can be made including the people capability, process efficiency (Lean thinking), knowledge management, and taking advantage of our digital first capabilities. As we learn new information, do we need to adapt our roadmap?

Reinforce and revisit the five success principles (5Ps) gaining agreement on future resource management evolution and adjustments ? with a goal of achieving a resource management maturity level that meets your business needs. Helping you to ensure that all new processes, learning and resource management improvement ‘sticks’ and becomes embedded in the new sustained ways of managing resources.

The output from undertaking these four steps will be an efficient, effective and risk managed resource management framework that addresses the root cause issues identified earlier. Our outputs from the second phase ? aligned to our 5 Success Principles ? include:

Purpose – Your organisation’s approach to resource management is clear, understood and shared across the group. Everyone in your organisation is aligned and constructively contributing to quality resource management outcomes

People – Your people have the knowledge and experience to embrace the new resource management framework and successfully deliver against their portfolio of commitments

Practices – Your organisation will have captured and embedded new improved resource management practices in known easily accessible processes and ways of working including adherence to your internal investment gates and key delivery milestones

Platform – Your organisation will have a fully digitised resource management framework improves resource management information quality, consistency, and transparency, improves people utilisation, and reduces the risk of over and under servicing

Performance – Your organisation can measure its resource management performance against the Purpose. You will have access to lead-based metrics, so it can be confident that resources have been allocated in accordance with your priorities ? and are on track to deliver to your customer commitments.

6.      The Benefit of Solving Resource Management

The key benefits to be accrued from solving your resource management issues include:

·        Ability to know what people are working on – including optimising utilisation of constrained scarce people resources

·        Traceable alignment of your resources to organisational and customer priorities

·        Resource ‘bottlenecks’ can be easily identified, and actions taken to remediate gaps. For example, ensuring you have access to enough procurement people to shift work efficiently to industry or security people to accredit your solutions

·        Being able to pre-emptively understand future skill requirements. So, they can be planned for and addressed

·        Making resourcing priorities from across the delivery organisation ‘discussable’. So, they can be openly and constructively compared, and adjustments made based on accurate real time information

·        Resource ‘warehousing’ will be discouraged through transparency, and the building of improved levels of trust that future delivery will be resourced in accordance with priorities

·        Project and In-service resource requirements will be more accurately estimated and be able to be continuously improved through ongoing feedback and learning

·        Higher levels of agility and adaptability will be achievable based on higher quality real-time decision-making information

·        Your organisation will be confident of meeting its agreed commitments and ultimately achieving its strategic objectives.

7.      What’s Next?

Should you be interested in finding out more information regarding PMLogic’s approach to successfully remediating the resource management issues identified in this paper please contact us. We are always curious and motivated to help clients solve their challenges!