This week, I encountered an age old debate: which is better, planning from the top down or the bottom up? It happened to emerge during a discussion about resource planning, but it also applies to cost and budget estimates.
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. . .assigning people to projects. I’ll admit, the traditional view of resource management is finding the right resources for your project. But how often does that turn into a fight for scarce resources? How often are projects approved and activated, but as the PM looks for people they aren’t available? So, that would lead us to actually doing some resource planning! Many organizations will start charting out their resource needs by role during the initiation phase, giving them a head start on finding available resources. Let’s see, I need a PM full-time, 20 hours a week of a DBA, another 20 of a programmer, and so on. Of course, I’m already knee-deep into serious analysis work on the project, and may have already tapped out all the business analysts with all this initiation work going on. So, role planning is not the most important element of resource management. Here’s a typical conversation from a manager to an exec: Manager: “I need 2 more project managers” Exec: “How do you know?” Manager: “Because my PMs are overloaded. They tell me they’re really busy and can’t handle the workload.” Exec: “So, how overloaded?” Manager: “REALLY overloaded.” Exec: “Prove it!” Oops – all the manager has is anecdotal evidence from his or her overloaded PMs. They say they’re overwhelmed, but the manager doesn’t really know by how much, and therefor doesn’t know how many PMs they really need to hire. Same thing with bringing on new projects. A new project request comes in, and the PMO Director tells the CIO they’re already overwhelmed and can’t take on new work. How do you know? Where’s the evidence? I’ve had this one come up twice in the last couple of weeks. What do you do if, even with all the resource allocations and assignments, all the planning and matching project demand to resource supply – what if there is still a lot of churn? You know, resources are still continually reassigned. Or worse, [...] In my “Maximizing IT Capacity” webinar the first poll asks “How much of your time do you log? Of the choices, “none” is the most common response, with “project time only” running a distant second. Yet when it comes to understanding resource issues, actual time is the most valuable information around. By analyzing the prior 12 months time records at PeopleSoft IT, we increased our project capacity 30%, and staved off drastic staff cuts during the Oracle battle. Why is this information so valuable? Properly analyzed, it provides insight into 3 key areas. |
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