Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices
Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.
Onsite Workshop
Without a realistic strategy for resource management:
- The steering committee will continue to approve more projects than resources can handle.
- Resources will be overallocated, and there will be no statistical evidence of why or how too many tasks are allocated to staff.
- With too many projects approved and not enough hours to complete them, projects will be delayed or sent to the backlog.
A realistic resource management strategy will result in:
- An accurate, realistic picture of the time spent on different types of work.
- The ability to forecast resource requirements to ensure that there is capacity to take on new projects in the future.
- Opportunities to reclaim project capacity through minimizing work in progress, distractions, and interruptions.
Module 1: Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand
The Purpose
- Obtain a high-level view of current resource management practices.
- Identify current and target states of resource management maturity.
- Perform an in-depth time-tracking audit and gain insight into how time is spent on project versus non-project work to calculate realized capacity.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Assess current distribution of accountabilities in resource management.
- Delve into your current problems to uncover root causes.
- Validate capacity and demand estimations with a time-tracking survey.
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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1.1 | Perform a root-cause analysis of resourcing challenges facing the organization. |
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1.2 | Create a realistic estimate of project capacity. |
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1.3 | Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level. |
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1.4 | Validate your supply and demand assumptions by directly surveying your resources. |
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Module 2: Design a Realistic Resource Management Process
The Purpose
- Construct a resource management strategy that aligns with your team’s process maturity levels.
- Determine the resource management tool that will best support your processes.
Key Benefits Achieved
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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2.1 | Action the decision points in Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management. |
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2.2 | Review resource management tool options, and depending on your selection, prepare a vendor demo script or review and set up Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite. |
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2.3 | Customize a workflow and process steps within the bounds of your seven dimensions and informed by your tool selection. |
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Module 3: Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices
The Purpose
- Develop a plan to pilot your new processes to test whether you have chosen the right dimensions for maintaining resource data.
- Develop a communication plan to guide you through the implementation of the strategy and manage any resistance you may encounter.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify and address improvements before officially instituting the new resource management strategy.
- Identify the other factors that affect resource productivity.
- Implement a completed resource management solution.
Activities: | Outputs: | |
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3.1 | Develop a pilot plan. |
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3.2 | Perform a resource management start/stop/continue exercise. |
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3.3 | Develop plans to mitigate executive stakeholder, team, and structural factors that could inhibit your implementation. |
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3.4 | Finalize the playbook and customize a presentation to help explain your new processes to the organization. |
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