Why Should Businesses Use Resource Management Software Solution To Manage Their Project?
Resource management systems enable companies to optimize their overall process of planning, and efficiently allocate all of their resources in order to derive maximum benefits out of it.
As a critical part of project management, managers who efficiently manage their project resources, including human resources such as employees and subcontractors, to complete a certain task - can improve and maximize the likelihood of their project success.
In the context of software development projects, resources can include: technical tools and equipment, labor, and others.
Equipped with a resource management system, managers will be able to achieve full visibility into their team members’ skills, workload, and availability.
Managers can also quickly identify whether a team member's skill is suitable for a specific project (e.g. mobile application development, web development etc.) and determine who can take on extra tasks or who is overloaded.
This allows project managers to allocate and balance workload more effectively, prioritize tasks to fit project timelines without going over.
Why Businesses Need to Manage Resources?
Resource management focuses on optimization and efficiency - essentially, resource management system software should enable project managers to effectively manage and allocate resources that are available to them.
Being able to efficiently utilize resources can provide full visibility into project resources management and also make sure that:
- Workloads are evenly allocated across the team.
- No task or matter gets missed.
- The right tools, supplies, and materials are available when needed.
Specifically, resource management software helps managers to assign resources to certain project tasks, and establish a timeline to make sure such tasks are completed on time.
For example, if a project requires back-end development using Java Technologies to be completed by a senior software architect, but he/she is not available until next month because of prior assignment on another project with full workload. Here, not being able to have full visibility into project resources may cause mismatching and derail the entire schedule.
With proper resource planning tool, managers will be able to predict more accurately their team members’ commitment, identify resources gap, and ensure the crucial resources are attained before they are put into production.
Besides, managers can also optimize project workflow, which enhances productivity and boost team members’ morale - while decrease the risk of project failure due to overloading and detachment.
Resource Management Methodology
Generally speaking, resource management follows a process as below:
- Allocation
- Scheduling
- Leveling and Smoothing
- Forecasting
The overall objective of resource management is to provide maximum visibility, and control of the projects and resources;
- Allocation: is the designation of suitable resources for the scheduled work. Resource allocation allows the appropriate resources to become available when needed, and helps managers derive the most out of the available resources.
- Scheduling: is the process of manager trying to accurately estimate the resources required to complete a task or project under a specified time-frame.
- Leveling: is the act of amending the start and finishing dates in accordance with resource constraints. For example, if project managers planned to have start the front-end development of a project to start in two weeks but there’s no front-end developers available until three weeks’ time, then resource leveling is executed to move that task.
- Smoothing: is the practice of modifying the planned work not to go above certain established limits. The objective of resource smoothing is to even out the resource designations throughout the project.
For example, if a senior software developers is scheduled to work full-time for two weeks consecutively, and then take the next two weeks off, then managers can try to re-arrange the tasks to smooth out the work load to three weeks with three days per week instead.
Resource smoothing is supposed to reduce the affect due to sudden spike cycles in the project schedule, and bring a more even workload for all team members. However, resource smoothing should only be carried out provided that it does not move the project end date to later or take out certain critical parts.
Benefits of Using Resource Management Solutions Software
- Resource management software solutions enable businesses to forecast and sufficiently plan in advance the resources required of a project or task in the future. In particular, during the planning stage of a development project, resources estimation can help identify project scope, possible limitations and unscheduled overheads, as well as risks.
- Such visibility allows managers to prevent issues such as resources gaps occur. Moreover, resource management software solutions enable managers to avoid over and/or under-allocation or restriction of resources by gaining insight into the team’s workload.
- Additionally, resource management software provides transparency so that team members and other project managers can have a snapshot of how the team capacity is running at a certain time. This is particularly helpful in case another project manager needs one of your developers working for a task on their project, they will be able to quickly see that developer’s schedule, workload and plan accordingly.
Effective resource management requires a good understanding on how much effort a task is needed and designate the right personnel for the job. With a good resource management software system, managers can gain insight into the timeline and estimation of resources required to complete them. Essentially, based on accumulated experience, managers can estimate how long a particular job that is similar to past projects can be completed, as well as which skills required to complete them, who and what other resources were also needed.
Resource management system software help managers to track resources availability in a continuous manner and progress in real-time. For instance, if managers are aware of certain task taking longer than expected for completion, they can quickly re-prioritize work and re-allocate hours across task owners to avoid the problem of missing deadlines or extended timelines.
Especially, if there is urgent tasks or works happened, project managers can use resource management to find out whether such an ad-hoc resources transfer will impact the current resource capacity and then adjust accordingly, in-order to minimize potential risks and loss. This also allows businesses to take on severe changes without affecting employees’ morale and productivity.
A robust resource planning tool enable project managers to designate workload and hours that best fit their team member’s unique expertise and availability. Besides, managers can divide the needed task hours between team members accordingly, to foster collaboration, and avoid delaying issues due to uneven workload, ultimately maximize efficiencies.
Conclusion
Embarking on a software development project without having sufficient and right kind of resources in place can lead to extended timeline and dragging of project or even the expensive re-work. Without a proper resource management system, your project might take longer to complete – which leads to additional time and costs occurred.
A robust project management software will enable companies, especially their project managers, to gain full visibility into overall workload of team members, and break-down the specific level of task hours are distributed across each individual team members.
Adopting a resource management planning tools also help ensure the right resources capacity are available to commit the necessary work at the right time – while prevent delay from happening, and also significantly the likelihood of project success.
