Resource Management

Resource management deals with the practical question of who will do the work. Once a portfolio of projects and initiatives has been approved, someone must decide which people, teams and skills go to each one, when they start and how much of their time they give. Without deliberate resource management, these decisions are made informally, the most capable people end up on too many projects at once and lower-priority work often takes resources from more important work simply because it asked first. Over time, this leads to delays on strategic work and frustration among the people pulled in several directions.

In portfolio management, resource management connects the decisions made in portfolio reviews to the people who carry them out. It relies on accurate information about who is available, what skills they have and what they are already committed to. For portfolio leaders and IT finance teams, it is central to delivering the portfolio on time and to understanding the true cost of work, since people's time is usually the largest cost in any change initiative.

Definition of Resource Management

Resource management is the planning, scheduling, allocation and monitoring of resources, most often people but also equipment, facilities and budget, across projects, programs and ongoing operations.

It works alongside capacity planning, which compares total demand with total supply, and resource allocation, which is the act of assigning specific resources to specific work. Resource management covers the whole cycle from planning through allocation to tracking and adjustment.

Elements of Resource Management

Resource inventory records the people available, their roles, skills, locations, cost rates and availability.

Demand management collects requests for resources from projects and teams, with the roles, skills and time periods required.

Allocation assigns people to work based on priority, skills and availability, and records how much of their time each assignment uses. Recording partial allocations, such as half a person's time, gives a more accurate picture than simply listing names against projects.

Tracking compares planned and actual use of resources, measuring resource utilization and showing where people are overloaded or underused.

Approaches to Resource Management

In a project-based approach, resources are assigned to individual projects and released when the projects end. This approach suits organizations that run most work as discrete projects.

In a team-based approach, common in agile organizations, stable teams are funded and work is brought to them. Resource management then focuses on team composition and on which work each team takes on.

Many organizations use a mix, with stable product teams for ongoing work and project-based assignments for specialists and one-off initiatives.

Importance of Resource Management in Strategic Portfolio Management

Resource management makes sure that the highest-priority work is properly staffed. When people are assigned according to portfolio priorities, strategic initiatives are less likely to stall for lack of key skills.

It reduces overload. Visibility of each person's commitments prevents the same people from being assigned to more work than they can handle, which is a common cause of delays and burnout.

It also improves the accuracy of plans, since schedules based on confirmed resource assignments are more reliable than those based on assumed availability.

Resource Management and Financial Management

Because people costs make up most of the cost of change work, resource assignments are the main driver of project costs. Accurate resource data allows more reliable cost forecasts and budget tracking.

Tracking time or allocations by project supports the capitalization of eligible labor costs and helps finance teams apply accounting rules consistently.

Resource data shows how much of the organization's people cost goes to strategic priorities, maintenance and support, which helps leaders judge whether spending matches strategy.

Comparing internal and external resource costs, such as employees, contractors and outsourced teams, supports decisions about how to source capacity, and can be linked to total cost of ownership analysis for the systems those people support.

Common Challenges

Resource data is often out of date or incomplete, especially in organizations without a shared tool for recording assignments.

Project managers may hold on to people beyond the time they are needed, or compete for the same specialists, which leads to conflicts that have to be resolved by priority.

Treating people as interchangeable units ignores differences in skills and experience, which can lead to assignments that look balanced on paper but do not work in practice. Recording a few key skills for each person, rather than a long skills catalog, is often enough to avoid the worst mismatches.