Resource Planning, if done well, can have a hugely positive impact on any business: a more streamlined planning process, overall efficiencies, and breaking down of business silos being amongst them.
All of this quite apart from the core aim of efficient planning, namely improved utilisation, leading to maximising profitability. But what pitfalls exist if resource planning is done badly?
Uneven resource allocation
Are you guilty of overloading your most experienced and qualified resources with too much work, whilst leaving others twiddling their thumbs? Neither of these situations is ideal. Overworking can lead to ill health – last month’s Mental Health Awareness week focused on stress and research has shown that work-related stress is the biggest cause of sickness and absence in the UK. Under resourcing and not challenging other members of the team can make them feel less valued as other members. A resource planning tool such as Retain can give you an overview of your team’s utilisation at that moment in time and coming up in the future. It can also show their skills and experience so that you can optimise utilisation.
Project teams don’t feel valued
Inefficient resource planning can have a big impact on team and individuals morale and can lead to your team not feeling valued. Map out your team’s skills using a resource planning tool to ensure that you’re matching them to the best projects and continuing to develop and challenge your team.
Missed Deadlines
We’ve all experienced that sinking feeling of a deadline running away from us and that a project will never get completed, let alone to the original time frames. There might be a range of reasons that your project isn’t running to time, and a common one is being overly optimistic when carrying out the initial planning or by making mistakes with your resource planning. By making sure you’re matching the right skills and experience to a project, and keeping a regular check on the utilisation and hours worked, it will definitely help in keeping your project to schedule.
Budgets and Revenues
The all important factor of project management – sticking to budget and avoiding increased costs No matter how well you plan a budget, if the project isn’t properly resourced, incurring additional costs is virtually unavoidable Resource planning tools can not only ensure you’re on track and recouping your costs for a project but can ensure you’re not missing out on potential billable hours thus optimising your revenues wherever possible. Retains resource planning software has a powerful inbuilt reporting suite allowing users to easily see actual vs forecast revenues, project costs to date and job specific reports.
