How to Make an Effective Resource Allocation Plan (Updated)
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Resource Allocation is making that grand plan on how to rally your troops behind a common goal. It is about strategic planning to identify the skills required, the number of resources required for those specific skills at what intervals, and for how long.
Simply put, it is end-to-end resource management allowing you to assess your resources’ availability and put them to good use.
As Wikipedia says,
In project management, resource allocation or resource management is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource availability and the project time.
In strategic planning, resource allocation is a plan for using available resources, for example, human resources, especially in the near term, to achieve goals for the future. It is the process of allocating scarce resources among various projects or business units.
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Resources are crucial to an organization’s strategy and vision and managing them well goes a long way in achieving that vision.
Let us understand the moving parts behind establishing a robust resource allocation for your projects.
1. Understand the Project Scope
The first step towards setting up a resource plan for your project is to understand the goals and requirements of the project.
The clearer the scope, the easier it is to estimate the number of hours, and assess the skills required & timeline needed to meet the project goals.
More importantly, you are able to do a quick resource-to-skill mapping to that of the project requirements.
It gives you ample view to plan your resource needs, and requests for additional resources and make a solid training plan to bridge any talent gaps.
Once you have listed out all resource requirements you are good to move to the next step.
2. Resource Availability
Identifying your available resources is essential to furthering your resource allocation plan.
Based on the resource-to-skill mapping, you can reach out to the resource managers in your organization to gain access to your available talent pool.
The most significant part is to have concrete answers to:
- Who are your available resources
- What skills do they possess
- How many of them have the skills that fit your requirements
- How long are these resources available to work on your project
Armed with these answers, you start assigning the relevant resources to your project.
3. Time Tracking & Resource Utilization
Keeping track of the project’s estimated hours and the burndown rate is a must to ensure your projects stay profitable.
Once your resources are on-board, start assigning tasks with proper due dates and estimated hours.
Provide them with an easy-to-use central project management tool for time tracking.
This way all resources can track and analyze their performance and it also makes it easier for the project managers to see the project progress in real-time.
You can mark your billable hours and assess your typical slag in terms of hours you cannot bill your clients for.
Over time, you can make amends to the process, upskill your resources; minimize non-billable activities to improve utilization rates across the company.
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4. Use Tools
Project management software such as Orangescrum is one of the greatest assets a business organization can have to manage resources more productively.
It lets you upload your project data instantly; you can also visualize and track where your resources are allocated. Features such as color-coded calendars and notes help project managers to reschedule which team member is over-tasked and who is free for task assignments on a simple calendar visualization.
5. Be Realistic with Resource Allocation
For project managers, it’s a good practice to be prepared for issues that may arise on the project but it should not lead them to accumulate resources by adding too many resources or days to the schedule.
Unrealistic resource allocation leads to the skewing of project estimates. Which moreover affects the effectiveness of long-term planning.
When comparing project estimates to actual utilization in a real-world scenario, the resource estimate is usually higher. It is essential that you use project management software such as Orangescrum to ensure that you keep making the right resource estimates in future projects.
6. Use Resource Reports
You can reallocate resources when there is a need. And the need for resource allocation can be determined from resource reports.
You may have planned out resource allocation well but changes can happen on projects. To determine what’s happening on the project and how much resource is truly being used for the project can be known from user reports.
When you use project collaboration tools such as Orangescrum you can generate all sorts of reports which can give you a full picture of the projects and how it is progressing.
This helps you balance your resources to ensure no team member is overworked and no one is idle.
7. Make a Post-Project Evaluation
At the end of any project, project managers and team leaders should evaluate to see what worked and what didn’t. Here are a few post-project questions to ask to determine the feasibility of the project’s success.
- What were the setbacks during the project development?
- Were the team members overloaded or did they handle their tasks effectively?
- Were the project details such as project scope, and deadlines, clear to the team members?
- Which areas could have been improved for future projects?
A retrospective meeting after each project completion is a crucial part of project management. It brings out a ton of information regarding the project lifecycle, and various hurdles in the development process, which helps project managers take measures to amend these shortcomings and discover a more optimized way of project planning for future projects.
Final Thoughts!
Trust and invest in collaborative time and resource management software that allows for end-to-project management, task management, time tracking, resource management, resource utilization, and overall workload management.
Simply put, tools like Orangescrum keep all your project elements together and allow them to interact seamlessly. The added advantage is that each role within your company is well-supported to get the job done effectively.
Spin it off with a quick signup and see how you can bring your project managers, developers, clients, executives, sales, and marketing teams together in Orangescrum!
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