Resource Management#
Resource management is the work towards the efficient and effective deployment of GTE's resources when they are needed. These resources may include financial, personnel, and equipment resources but from a GTE Project Manager's perspective resource management is primarily focussed on personnel, or "human resources".
The end game is essentially to:
- Ensure that there are people available within GTE with the necessary skill set required for delivery of project work,
- Decide the number and skill sets of new personnel to hire, and
- Allocate the available workforce across various projects.
Resource management is not just about sufficient capacity, but also adequate utilization of resources. Project Managers will generally be concerned with capacity, and GTE's Resource Managers and management team will be concerned with utilization.
GTE intends to conduct most of the planning for resource requirements in the proposal phase for prospective projects to sufficient detail to assess the forecast loading of currently available resources and determine in advance of award whether additional resources will be required.
Resource Identification#
Resources are identified across the systems used at GTE by their full name, or alternatively by their initials. The initials MUST be three and are compound as follows:
FML
Where F = first name initial, M = middle name initial, L = last name initial
If someone doesn't have a middle name, the initials become:
FLA
Where F = first name initial, L = last name initial, A = second letter of last name
Resource Availability, Capacity, Assignment & Loading#
GTE personnel ("resources") generally work across several active projects at any one time and so a resource's availability and capacity to complete project work must be assessed from an organizational level (WBS Level 0).
Budgeted work (ie activities with an assigned budget) is assigned to resources at the project activity level. This is known as "resource assignment". The total work assigned to a resource at any point in time versus that resource's capacity (generally based on an 8 hour/day) can be considered the "resource loading".
The standard GTE Smartsheet schedule template calculates this loading, as a percentage, at the budgeted activity level and reports this up for use on organizational level reports and views. Resource loading is also calculated in additional Smartsheets that cover non-project resource assignments, as covered below.
Resource Loading at the Project Level#
As a starting point, the Project Manager will ensure the planned duration for an activity affords sufficient total capacity (duration x hours/day capacity) for the assigned resource to complete the activity in isolation (ie without yet also considering the resource's other work requirements). In simple terms, the total capacity allocated through the assignment of one or more resources and the duration allowed to complete the work, must exceed the activity's budget.
Example
For example, a 4 day duration may be established for an activity with a budget of 20hrs. The resource loading (for an 8hr/day resource) would be 20 / (8*4), or 63%.
The above example simplifies the scenario to a single resource but it should be noted that where the duration is not negotiable, it may be necessary to add additional resources to the activity to increase the total capacity.
Note
In the real world, doubling the personnel on a task rarely results in a halving of the duration required due to inefficiencies of sharing the responsibilities for delivery. The Project Manager should consider this and make adjustments as necessary and/or expect slight inefficiences to budget.
Additional to the activity level consideration of loading, the Project Manager must view resource loading at the project level (WBS Level 1) to ensure the combination of various resource assignments across the project do not result in overloading of resources. This is known as "resource levelling" and may result in delaying lower priority activities or assigning alternate resources, for example.
The Project Manager must also consider the profile of resource requirements for the project and attempt to avoid significant peaks and troughs in resource requirements, where schedule constraints allow. This is known as "resource smoothing" and will be achieved by delaying or stretching activities within the milestone commitments of the schedule.
Resource Loading from Non-Project Assignments#
In addition to project schedules, Smartsheet schedules also exist to account for resource assignment that may not be covered by a project schedule. These supplementary should only be used as noted in the tables below, and as a rule it is GTE's intent to have a schedule for every project of works undertaken.
The supplementary schedules must reside within the 1000 - Scheduling Workspace in Smartsheet. Beyond this Workspace, and the schedules within each project Workspace, there should not be any other Smartsheets in the GTE instance with the Resource Management module enabled.
| Supplementary Schedule | Description/Use |
|---|---|
| Leave | Captures all personal, community, annual leave etc. All planned leave must be entered in this schedule as soon as it is approved by the Resource Manager. |
| Non-Working Time | Where personnel are part-time, or not available to work for reasons other than leave, this supplementary schedule is used to block the resource out for the relevant non-working periods. |
| Secondments | Secondment work is typically a regular, ongoing loading and each engagement will be entered into this supplementary schedule to avoid the need for secondment-specific schedules. |
| Audits | Audit work is typically a short term, full-time engagement. Each audit resource requirement will be entered into this supplementary schedule to avoid the need for audit-specific schedules. |
| Potential Projects | Where a proposal has been provided to a client for work and a Smartsheet schedule was not prepared at the time, it may be necessary to block out resources for the potential project. These can be entered into this supplementary schedule, but it is noted that this i non-preferential to a brief Smartsheet tender schedule attached to, or incorporated within, the estimate. |
| Overheads | This supplementary schedule is used to capture the loading of personnel involved entirely, or partially, with overhead work to reflect that loading in determining possible availability for direct work. |
In addition to the above, the following supplementary schedules exist to cover small projects that do not warrant a standalone schedule. The assessment in determining this should consider the relative ease of creating a Workspace and standard Smartsheet Project Schedule and that project-specific schedules are the preferred approach.
For each, there should be at least sufficient work breakdown as indented activities beneath the project
| Supplementary Schedule | Description/Use |
|---|---|
| Small Projects | General use for small projects. |
| Small Projects - Comms | For small Network/Comms discpline projects. |
| Small Projects - Electrical | For small Electrical discipline projects. |
Resource Loading at the Organization Level#
Resource Managers will ensure the resources for which they are responsible, are appropriately loaded. This is done using the Resource Views in Smartsheet and includes identifying both overloaded and underloaded resources.
It is the Resource Manager's responsibility to ensure that the Resource View for each relevant resource reflects that resource's actual loading, by:
- Verifying that all the resource's assignments are visible and accounted for. That may mean a discussion with the relevant Project Manager where it appears a particular project is not showing, or is incorrectly scheduled.
- Confirming that resources are not overloaded on any particular project schedule. That may mean a discussion with the relevant Project Manager to confirm the requirements are accurate and identify strategies for achieving the work on time in this instance.
- Capturing resource assignments outside of projects - such as leave and secondments - or ensuring through the appropriate administrative person that these are captured.