Getting the Right Resources

Question 10: Do you have enough experienced resources?

21 Ways to Excel at Project Management

Good Practice: A major contributor to the success of projects is the availability of customer and supplier managers, with high levels of experience both in the business and with project delivery and to have them available early. Big projects need substantive and appropriate resources. Dedicated resource provides time to think it through. Two or more people equal different experiences, professional networks and healthy debate.

Getting good people appointed as dedicated resource for projects early is a tough challenge and some compromise is often necessary. A recent global project agreed, at a high-level, to provide people in each area affected on six-month full-time secondments. In reality, only a-small-minority-of areas provided dedicated resources; most people were made available part-time; this resulted in overall timescales being exceeded by six months. Often the business culture and working practice is heavily oriented to 'business functions' and is not always conducive to project based work and team working.

The challenge for the project manager consists of attracting the right resources, forming a cohesive team, keeping the team motivated, meeting individual aspirations and getting the work done - all within scope, cost, time, and customer satisfaction! ¹

Common Mistakes

• Not enough experienced committed resource from the business.
• Appointed resource overcommitted and unable to devote enough time to the project.

Warning Sign! Resource requirements exceed resource availability.

Once the Definition, Initiation and Planning stages are complete the project moves to the Monitoring & Control Stage. Questions 11, 12 and 13 should be answered.

¹ Dhanu Kothari, Getting Work Done: The Human Side of Project Management, 2008.