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Resource Allocation in Project Management: How to Organize Work Effectively [+ Example]

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One of the essential components of an effective project management process is resource allocation. 

According to LTFE , a training company with educational offerings, it’s one of the top five project management challenges in 2023.

Assigning the right resources to proper activities isn’t as easy as you can think. The process requires preliminary preparation, specific knowledge, and experience. Anyway, professional resource allocation in project management affects successful work realization. 

In this article, you’ll learn what resource allocation in project management is, why it’s important, and how it helps improve your workflow. A detailed example implemented with professional PM software will be the icing on the cake.

Let’s dive in.

What is resource allocation in project management?

• Types of resources .

What is the purpose of resource allocation?

• Benefits of resource allocation in project management .

Why is resource allocation in project management important?

• Resource allocation methods .

What are the challenges of resource allocation?

• How to allocate resources with the help of professional software .
• Resource allocation in project management example .

Resource allocation in project management is the process of assigning and distributing resources to various tasks and activities within a project. The goal of this process is to ensure that the right resources are available at the right time to complete project tasks effectively and manage possible constraints.

It often happens that projects need more resources, but they are not infinite. Precisely that is why it is crucial to manage and delegate resources to avoid scarcity properly. 

In other words, the resource allocation definition is based on a simple thing: to ensure that projects operate smoothly and meet all the company’s business objectives on time .

By the way, a poll within a German-language TPG webinar (2023) asked where the participants would like to see AI support in project management. 61% said that it should be resource planning.

Now that you know what is meant by resource allocation, let’s talk about its types.

Types of resources

Globally, project management resources can be human and non-human. They are divided into 5 groups:

• Facilities.

Let’s have a closer look at each of them.

• Labor . These are various professionals, employees, and team members with different skills needed to complete a project successfully. These people make any plan’s backbone.
• Equipment . It includes necessary tools for project completion: from software or hardware to hammer or drill, depending on a company’s specifics.
• Facilities . It is all about an environment for work and project realization such as offices, open spaces, meeting rooms, etc.
• Materials . In other words, it is the stuff needed to produce outputs: from pens and paper to raw materials for house building.
• Budget . Probably, the most important type that allows buying all we listed above.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of resource allocation and leveling in project management. It affects all working processes and helps you avoid missed deadlines and meet business objectives.

Let us make it more clear. Every project consists of tasks. If one of them is completed with a delay, there is a high probability that the entire project will be completed with a delay . And one of the main reasons for missed deadlines is the lack of resources because of its inappropriate allocation.

So, what is the importance of resource allocation? Its main goal boils down to reaching the best results paying the lowest cost. So, constant optimization is the necessary thing while running these processes. 

When you know what it takes to make a project successful, you can effectively plan and manage the optimal amount of employees, materials, money, etc. 

Many large companies that value optimization hire a certain specialist for this purpose — a resource manager. What is his area of responsibility?

While a project manager creates and assigns tasks, a resource manager is accountable for creating a resource management plan and allocating assets to ensure the project’s success.

Resource management helps:

• Forecast and avoid possible difficulties and scarcity of people, money, materials, etc.  
• Prevent employees’ burnout.
• Inform others about your team’s plans and workload.
• Meet deadlines.
• Avoid extra spending.

Now let’s identify the strong sides of resource allocation in project management.

Benefits of resource allocation in project management

Effective resource allocation is crucial for completing projects on time and within budget. It makes it an essential aspect of project management to be mastered by professionals.

This process has several benefits, which are mentioned below.

• Optimized utilization of resources. Proper resource allocation ensures that your project resource calendar works effectively and your assets don’t experience idle time and overallocation. It leads to budget savings and higher productivity.
• Improved project planning . Allocating resources in advance provides better planning, even if you deal with resource planning for multiple projects . It means that you can identify resource constraints early and make adjustments to your project timeline and scope accordingly.
• Advanced communication . Clear project management resource allocation facilitates communication among managers, team members, and all stakeholders. Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. It reduces possible confusion and misunderstandings.
• Risk mitigation . Right allocation and resource scheduling help teams identify potential resource constraints or conflicts. It allows project managers to proactively address these issues and reduce project risks.
• Competent financial control . Efficient project management resource allocation helps to control costs by avoiding unnecessary overtime or resource duplication.
• Improved decision-making . This benefit allows project managers to make informed decisions about resource allocation based on project priorities, critical paths , and available assets.
• Increased flexibility . The process of resource allocation can be adjusted as project requirements change, allowing for adaptability in response to unforeseen circumstances.

The importance of resource allocation in project management is not a topic for long discussions, since most often, managers and teams clearly understand the full significance of this process. No doubt that it directly impacts project success, efficiency, and cost control.

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits of the process, there are several other essential strengths and reasons why project management resource allocation is really important.

• Keeps resources under control. Proper allocation of all possible project resources ensures that they are used efficiently. This order and their complete control help in minimizing waste and optimizing the project’s cost-effectiveness.
• Helps to meet deadlines. Resource allocation helps in assigning tasks and responsibilities to team members based on their skills and availability. It ensures that project milestones and deadlines are met on time.
• Enhances team productivity . When resources are allocated properly, team members can focus on their tasks without interruptions. It logically leads to high-quality deliverables and enhanced productivity.
• Assists in identifying constraints. By allocating resources effectively, project managers can determine potential resource constraints or bottlenecks early.
• Allows for quality control. Allocating the right resources with the necessary expertise ensures that your project is executed with the required quality standards. It logically reduces the likelihood of errors and rework.
• Leads to stakeholder satisfaction. Meeting project goals and deadlines through effective resource allocation in project planning and scheduling accelerate stakeholder satisfaction. It can be important for maintaining client relationships and organizational reputation.

Resource allocation methods

There are powerful resource allocation methods that help business owners, managers, and teams distribute and assign required resources, such as personnel, equipment, materials, time, and budget in a systematic and effective manner.

Professional resource allocation in project management can be accomplished through the following methods:

• Critical path method (CPM) . This approach helps to identify and schedule the most critical tasks in a project to manage timelines efficiently.
• Critical chain method (CCM) . The method optimizes resource allocation while considering task dependencies to prevent project delays. It focuses on allocating resources based on the critical chain of a project, which is the longest chain of interdependent tasks.
• Resource leveling. This method aims at evenly distributing available resources over the project timeline. It ensures a more consistent utilization of resources and minimizes fluctuations in workload.
• Resource smoothing . This method, on the other hand, focuses on adjusting a project schedule to balance resource demand and supply while keeping the project duration constant. It aims at minimizing resource overallocations without extending the project’s overall timeline.
• Earned value management (EVM). This method helps to comprehensively monitor and evaluate project progress, encompassing schedule, scope, and resource measurements. EVM offers a precise overview of project performance by comparing the value of completed work to the planned budget.
• Expert judgment. This approach is about utilizing the expertise of industry specialists to determine project resource needs and allocation, especially in cases with limited data or unique projects.
• Historical data analysis. This approach means examining data from past projects to gauge necessary resources and allocation, suitable for projects with a history of similar endeavors.
• Prioritization matrix. The method is based on a special matrix that assesses and ranks various tasks or projects based on specific criteria. It helps organizations determine which activities should receive priority based on factors such as importance, urgency, and available resources .

A good manager should be able to adapt to market changes to achieve better results. Resource allocation is one of the essential parts of PM, and at the same time, it is the hardest thing to optimize and automate. 

Many professionals are engaged in several projects and sometimes play several roles in them. This fact makes management processes even more complex. 

Below we describe some common resource allocation challenges.

• Changes in a project. Every manager should keep in mind that changes can occur at every moment of project delivery. So, it is always better to have a flexible resource allocation plan.
• Lack of qualified resources. It is important to ensure your employees possess the required skills to work on the project and in a company in general. Otherwise, the allocation procedure will become just a waste of time. 
• Poor capacity planning and measuring. Before starting work, you should define the capacity of your resources. In other words, determine available resources (no matter human or not) to deliver your project within budget and on time.
• Changes in resource availability. Resource allocation is not a static process. It will be helpful if you don’t forget about sick days, delivery delays, etc., which can cause scenario changes.
• Not assessed risks. Here we are talking about not only human resources but about all types of them that were listed earlier. A manager should assess every possible risk: from extra costs and unforeseen events to equipment change and the learning process of new software.
• Task delays. Tasks can be connected with dependencies. So, if one step in the project is delayed, it can cause a domino effect and affect the timing of other tasks.
• Working with international teams/remotely. If you work in a remote or distributed team , you have probably faced difficulties in workflow because of colleagues’ different time zones and locations. A good manager should always predict such things to avoid miscommunications and delays.

Now is the time to consider specific steps necessary for the proper organization of resources within a project.

How to allocate resources with the help of professional software

After all that you have learned, the question arises: how to do resource allocation in project management properly? And how to make a workflow smoother and get more successful results?

Below, we describe the consistent steps that will help align your workload and improve your workflow. All of these steps can be available with the help of a robust online tool. It would be great if this resource management tool provided a Gantt chart view – a handy timeline that allows for overseeing the whole workflow picture.

One of the professional examples of such software is GanttPRO.

The Gantt chart maker comes with robust project management features, enabling teams to achieve successful outcomes. It is used across various industries, including software development, complex construction projects, events, marketing, and many other fields.

Professionals utilize GanttPRO for project management, task scheduling, event tracking, deadline management, collaboration, as well as advanced resource planning.

Here are the thoughts of George Rossle, a production manager at A+ Construction Pro:

Once you start working with GanttPRO, you will feel confident and professionally prepared, because the functionality of the tool is intuitive and convenient for most users.

In case you want to start working with GanttPRO as quickly as possible, there are pre-made Gantt chart templates for use in many industries and areas.

Project teams rely on GanttPRO to plan projects, manage tasks, and allocate resources effectively, recognizing it as reliable resource management software .

So, let’s explore how to allocate resources in project management step by step.

• Align on the scope of your project .
• Divide your project into tasks and subtasks .
• Invite project participants and create virtual resources .
• Assign tasks .
• Remember about deadlines .
• Manage workload .

1. Align on the scope of your project

Do you remember the quote “Well begun is half done” by Aristotle? This phrase actually stands true to different aspects of business, including project management resource allocation.

Thoroughly understanding the scope of your project will help you build a robust foundation for further resource allocation.

To scope a new project, you should clearly realize how complex your project will be and how many resources you will need to accomplish it with success. Understanding the project’s goals, deadlines, and deliverables is rather important. It will help your team get a sense of your project needs to hit all objectives on time and within budget. 

The proper definition of a project scope also helps avoid situations when deliverables exceed the pre-set project scope.

2. Divide your project into tasks and subtasks

The successful strategy of resource allocation in project management ensures that all your resources are managed and allocated on the task level. 

Hence, the next logical step is dividing your project into smaller manageable tasks. Each task should have a fixed start and end date, due date, and budget.

To systemize your tasks in GanttPRO, you can use a work breakdown structure (WBS). After that, you can easily determine task dependencies and mark project milestones within your timeline. It can be easily performed with the help of drag-and-drop.

3. Invite project participants and create virtual resources

Having everything and everyone in one place is an extremely convenient decision. With the robust PM software, you can easily collaborate with your teammates and organize both virtual and labor resources.

In GanttPRO, you can easily invite your team members and set roles, costs, and calendars for them. Creating virtual resources and managing them is just as easy as with people. You can define cost for all resources per hour, per item, or just cost.

4. Assign tasks

Once your tasks are placed on a timeline with all dependencies and milestones, you can distribute them among your team members.

Assigning tasks to responsible teammates in GanttPRO takes a matter of seconds. With a handy Gantt chart with resource allocation the picture of your project becomes clearer.

Assign one or more resources to every task to be sure everything is going to be completed.

Don’t also forget to identify the roles and responsibilities of all the people involved in your project.

If you want to provide your teammates with special rights to view data, you can easily do it in GanttPRO, as it allows for working with different account roles and project rights .  

5. Remember about deadlines

It is crucial to control the timing of each task to complete projects successfully. Even one missed deadline can negatively affect the work of colleagues and the final result.

With resource scheduling tools , you can easily:

• Control the timing of each task and the entire project.
• Meet deadlines promptly.
• Track how much time your employees spend on completing their tasks.

These features will help you efficiently distribute work among employees and stay within time frames.

6. Manage workload

Monitoring resource workloads and reallocating them are essential solutions to keep plans within the budget. 

Companies that regularly check and reevaluate their resource allocation have higher chances to create more value for their projects and, eventually, deliver higher returns. Their employees won’t experience burnout or boredom.

In GanttPRO, you can keep track of resource workloads in one place. 

This is highly appreciated by Allan Cid, an experienced project manager, who admits:

An online Gantt chart automatically calculates the workload of each employee and makes it possible to redistribute tasks between team members if needed.

With the drag-and-drop simplicity, it is a matter of seconds to reallocate any resource from your project. This helps when resources are overloaded or underutilized.

All of the steps listed are basic but they can be easily supplemented with additional ones.

Now it’s time to look at these processes using a practical example.

Resource allocation in project management example

Let’s say, our example of resource allocation in project management is related to creating a new game portal. The goal of this portal is to provide a centralized hub for accessing a variety of video games, allowing users to get a range of gaming-related services, such as game downloads, reviews, news, and community forums. 

In this project management resource allocation case, we’re tasked to develop a portal from scratch with a little assistance from a design agency.

Below are the specific steps and what our resource allocation plan in GanttPRO may look like.

1. Defining a project scope

The project scope is pretty clear here, and we have a detailed project plan with granularity to the tasks that need to be completed.

A new gaming portal will contain a hub for accessing 100+ video games and attract over 80K followers from the community in Q1-Q2. 

2. Creating tasks and subtasks

A game portal development project will include parental tasks and smaller subtasks. Here they are:

• Concept and planning (gaming communities research, popular games analysis, unique features).
• Design (interface, layout, UI elements, interactive blocks).
• Content creation (news articles, user reviews, community videos).
• Development (databases, server setup, integrations, authentication, user registration form).
• Testing (1st testing stage, bug fixes, 2nd testing stage).
• Launch (beta, portal deployment, announcement).
• Marketing and promotion (PR, news, social media, advertising, conference).
• Maintenance and updates (monitoring sessions, maintaining campaigns).

3. Understanding resources

The project budget is $18K. It involves the participation of the following managers and departments:

• Project manager (Sam).
• Product manager (Ashley).
• Community manager (Peter).
• Engineering, front-end and back-end (Ben, Tomas, Luck).
• Design (Clara, Paul, Vera, Anthony).
• QA (Alex, Debby).
• Marketing (Jim, Francheska, Billy).
• Agency assistance (Jeremy).

Our goal here is to define the most relevant experts and check whether they have enough capacity to join the initiative. 

It’s crucial to take some time to list the things that can go wrong with our allocated resources and see what steps we can take to address those issues and make the allocation process future-proof in advance.

4. Task assigning

The distribution of tasks in our project can occur as follows:

• The product manager in cooperation with the project manager will be responsible for the concept of the future portal and planning the key stages of its development.
• Designers and the agency staff will work on all the issues related to the portal design.
• Content marketing specialists will provide high-quality content for the portal.
• Developers will work on front-end and back-end tasks and prepare the portal for its successful launch.
• The QA team will do their best to test the platform and identify possible bugs.
• The community manager in cooperation with marketers will promote the portal and make it adorable for the community. 

We can set values and cost per hour for human resources and let GanttPRO calculate the cost of the entire project.

5. Deadlines

We should remember that we need to track how much time our team members spend on completing their tasks. Controlling the timing of each task and setting deadlines to complete the portal successfully is very important.

6. Workload management

Now it’s important to review and revise resource allocation to achieve better project value and prevent employee burnout.

In GanttPRO, we can conveniently manage resource workload in a corresponding space. It automatically counts employee workloads and allows for quick task redistribution among team members using friendly drag & drop functionality.

Seems like it is all we wanted to tell you about such an important process as resource allocation in project management.

Make resource allocation in project management a strength for your team and the entire business

By following the steps outlined for effective resource allocation in project management and keeping our example in mind, you can prepare your team for optimal performance and instill confidence in achieving project goals.

While implementing these steps may appear daunting, the advantages of allocation are substantial, particularly when leveraging robust technologies.

To enhance your project management resource allocation expertise, explore professional tools like GanttPRO. It will identify resource overallocation and enable timely adjustments, ensuring your team remains on course and well-balanced.

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Project Resource Management: The Ultimate Guide

Lucija Bakić

February 1, 2024

In an agency, managing your employees, time, and finances is everything. Here’s how you can do this by optimizing your project resource management .

This article will discuss the basics of project resource management, its key concepts and practices, and how to best use project resource management software to streamline the process.

Key Takeaways

• Project resource management is crucial for ensuring effective and efficient use of resources in agency project management, involving key steps such as planning, allocating, monitoring, and resource adjustment to support project objectives.
• Different types of project resources, including human resources, time, and financial resources, must be managed to sustain an agency’s growth and stability.
• Utilizing project resource management software like Productive can help agencies forecast resource needs, manage billable utilization, and reduce costs, enhancing project success and client satisfaction.
• Addressing challenges such as resource planning for multiple projects , balancing billable hours, and maintaining transparency is essential for successful project resource management.

Defining Project Resource Management

Project resource management is a foundational aspect of agency project management . While project management tracks and manages task progress, resource management ensures that the resources assigned to these tasks are used effectively and efficiently. This includes allocating the right people to a project and ensuring that you can cover up any resource gaps that might occur due to external or internal risks. The main steps of managing resources include planning, scheduling, and allocating resources in a way that supports project requirements and objectives. It also involves monitoring and making necessary adjustments to avoid resource shortages and conflicts and ensure timely project completion. A term adjacent to resource management is capacity planning. It usually refers to a broader process of gauging an agency’s capacity to take on more projects and initiatives. Learn more by reading our Guide to Capacity Planning .

Main Types of Project Resources

Resource types depend on your specific industry. For production-based industries such as manufacturing or construction, resources must consider things like machines, raw materials, and the logistical requirements for producing and delivering physical goods efficiently and effectively. In service-based industries, good capacity planning can be hard to gauge, as you’re often dealing with intangible factors, such as quality or client satisfaction. However, there are some resources that can be more closely measured and tracked. This includes:

• People: An agency’s workforce is its biggest asset — but it can also be the most difficult to manage. Handling your human resources includes everything from ensuring that employees are working on the right task at the right time, to providing them with continuous development and ensuring a healthy working environment.
• Time: How are your employees spending your time? Finding the balance between dedicating enough time to billable tasks and key non-billable concerns is another crucial facet of your agency’s success.
• Finances: Without finances, your agency cannot function properly. Good management of financial resources means ensuring that costs and expenses across projects are aligned with overarching business strategies. It also means monitoring your budgets and key performance indicators in real time and providing timely reports to project stakeholders.

See more : Financial Management in Project Management

Why Is Project Resource Management Important?

Effective project resource management can bring many benefits. This includes more successful project delivery and smoother agency operations . This is backed up by data, as survey results by the Panorama Consulting Group show that 83% of agencies that track ROI met their project expectations with the right resource management software. The main benefits of enterprise resource planning included increased productivity or efficiency (78%), removing silos (78%), improved customer experience (70%), real-time data (66%), and standardization (58%). But how does project resource management contribute to all of these factors? By helping agencies address the following challenges:

• Resource cost optimization. By ensuring that resources are used efficiently, projects can avoid wasting resources or overcommitting them, leading to significant cost savings. This includes having a full understanding of your human resources, minimizing idle time, and using their skills to support quick and quality delivery.
• Scope creep. Scope creep, or the unplanned expansion of project scope, is a common challenge in project management. Although resource management doesn’t outright prevent scope creep, it can mitigate it. For one, good resource management provides full visibility of your resource capacity and limitations. This enables project managers to communicate this to clients and make decisions based on reliable data.
• Inefficient workflows. Proper resource management aims to reduce downtime and bottlenecks in daily workflows. By continuously monitoring and adjusting resource allocations based on project progress and changing conditions, project managers can ensure that resources are being used in the most efficient way possible. This efficiency not only accelerates project timelines but also improves the overall productivity of the team.

In short, the ultimate goal of project resource management is to improve project outcomes. By optimizing resource use and aligning it closely with project goals, agencies are that much closer to achieving their desired outcomes.

Essential Resource Management Tools

We can distinguish between different types of resource management software. The two main categories include:

• Specialized solutions: These types of tools usually focus on functionalities that help manage a specific agency resource, such as time or finances. This can include time tracking software for agencies or project accounting tools .
• All-in-one tools : An all-in-one, or comprehensive tool, is a type of software that offers a range of integrated features, usually combining project, resource, and financial management.

While smaller agencies might see the appeal of specialized tools – such as reduced platform complexity, and often less cost due to limited features – consider the benefits of an all-in-one solution. As your agency grows, you’ll need more robust support for your increasingly complex agency operations. An all-in-one tool helps cut down on the amount of tech you need to manage day-to-day agency processes. Furthermore, it ensures your data is standardized across all client engagements (also check out: ERP system meaning and top examples).

We used to have a project management tool, a time tracking tool, a support tool, a way we handled opportunities and sales-driven processes. Those were all separate tools that we had, and it wasn’t good . It also meant that all that data was being lost every time we switched between tools, or we had to find a way to normalize the data between them. And now, the fact that it’s all in one, it’s really a game changer.

Bryan Casler, Vice President of Digital Strategy at 4Site Interactive Studios

Keep reading for an overview of how you can support your resource management with a popular all-in-one agency management tool.

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Productive – The Top All-in-One Agency Management Software

Productive is a management system for agencies of all shapes and sizes, including consultancies, marketing agencies, creative agencies, and development companies. It has various features that support the smooth running of your agency, such as resource scheduling, financial tracking, sales management, and various team collaboration capabilities. Let’s take a closer look at Productive’s resource management capabilities in the following section, starting with creating an effective resource management plan .

1. Creating a Resource Plan

A resource plan is the foundation of your agency’s resource management strategy. It’s a detailed schedule that specifies which resources are used for which project tasks, during specific periods of time.

CREATE AN EASY-TO-MANAGE RESOURCE PLAN WITH PRODUCTIVE

Productive’s Resource Planning offers precisely this — a reactive schedule that makes creating time bookings for your project teams easy. You can book employees by:

• Entering specific hours per day
• Selecting a percentage of overall employee capacity
• Inputting total hours, without specifying daily work breakdowns

Since Productive also incorporates time off management, this means that you won’t be able to allocate employees that have already booked their holidays. Making changes to the bookings is simple — use drag-and-drop to reallocate your resources, or use options for splitting up or repeating your bookings.

TURN ON HEATMAPS TO HELP GAUGE UTILIZATION

You can group your resources with custom fields, splitting them up by team, skill, seniority, and more, to get more accurate insights into your real capacity. Furthermore, you can filter views in multiple ways, such as making them project or client-centric, in order to simplify high-level planning. Other essential features include:

• Placeholders: Used to create bookings for external resources, such as contractors or freelancers.
• Tentative bookings: Used to create various resource planning scenarios without impacting your resource availability.

2. Managing Billable Utilization

Billable utilization is a crucial metric in gauging the effectiveness and efficiency of your resources. It’s the ratio of billable hours worked vs total hours worked by your employees. Industry benchmarks suggest a ratio of 70-90% for production staff and 60-80% for account management (Promethean Research).

PRODUCTIVE PROVIDES KEY INSIGHTS INTO YOUR RESOURCE EFFICIENCY

With Productive, you can visualize your utilization across various key metrics. For example, you can analyze your utilization per seniority or per team, since you’re likely to have different criteria depending on the category of your resource. For creative agencies that offer various services, such as web design, development, or testing, you can view utilization for each to guide your hiring and sales strategies (see also: software for creative agencies ). Additionally, check utilization per month to pinpoint patterns such as seasonality and act accordingly. With Productive, you can also forecast your utilization to view your capacity for upcoming periods of time. This helps you determine which projects you have enough resources for, and where you might have to consider finding external staff or reallocating employees. Check out a utilization of resources example in Productive:

3. Resource Forecasting

Resource forecasting enables project managers to anticipate necessary resources and their availability, ensuring efficient project execution. By effectively predicting resource needs, managers can align their allocation of resources with project timelines and objectives to improve the chances of project success.

PRODUCTIVE’S FORECASTING DELIVERS INSIGHTS INTO KEY AGENCY METRICS

We’ve mentioned Productive’s capability for forecasting your resource utilization. However, Productive can also help you visualize and forecast other key agency metrics, such as profit margins and revenue. By using data on your cost rates and billable hours, you can view these analytics across your project duration. When you update your resource bookings, this is reflected in your data. You can use these insights to make data-driven decisions for your projects. For example, what happens to your project based budgeting when you create an additional booking or switch between team members? Now you can have the answer to these questions and more, in real time.

We’ve always known, on a monthly basis, how we’re doing as a company. But knowing on a per project level, in real time —we never really had that visibility. You guys do a good job of providing that. If you look at it on a yearly basis, it does give us the ability to look, per client and per project where do we really stand.

Orion Jensen , CEO at Clear Launch

Additional Features

As an all-in-one tool, Productive offers capabilities that go beyond resource planning. This includes key features such as:

• Project Management : Track your project progress and streamline collaboration with Productive’s project views and easy task management. This includes Gantt, Kanban, List, and Calendar. Tasks include to-dos, subtasks, and milestones, as well as automatic notifications that can be customized for frequency and devices.
• Time Tracking : Productive’s time tracking helps you keep track of your non-billable and billable hours while simplifying the administrative part of the process. You can create entries by tracking time directly from tasks with a timer, inputting your hours manually, or even syncing them automatically with your resource bookings.
• Budgeting & Billing : Build and manage budgets of all types with Productive, including hourly, fixed-price, hybrid, and retainer. For complex projects, split your budgets up into phases. Then, create invoices and send them from the platform, or copy them to Xero or QuickBooks with Productive’s Integrations.

Other capabilities include Sales , Reporting , Automations , Purchase Orders , and Docs .

Overview of the Resource Management Process

The resource management process is a comprehensive approach that encompasses several critical steps: 1. Resource Analysis : This initial step involves identifying the types and quantities of resources needed for the project. It assesses the current availability of resources and identifies any gaps between what is available and what is required. 2. Resource Planning : Once the resource needs are understood, resource planning involves developing strategies to ensure that the right resources are available at the right time and place. This includes planning for resource acquisition, allocation, and utilization throughout the project lifecycle (learn more about workload management ). 3. Monitoring Resources : Constant monitoring is essential to ensure resources are being used as planned. This step involves tracking the utilization of resources, evaluating their performance, and ensuring they contribute to completing project goals. 4. Change Management : Changes are often inevitable, even in the best-planned projects. Effective resource management requires flexibility to adapt to these changes. This includes ensuring easy reallocation between different projects, adjusting schedules, and making other necessary modifications to stay aligned with the project’s needs. Check out a resource planning example :

Core Resource Management Techniques and Terms

While you’re going through the project resource management process, you’ll need to use several key techniques to develop a successful capacity model . These include:

• Gap Analysis : A technique used to identify the difference between current resource capabilities and project requirements, usually performed during the project initiation phase.
• Resource Allocation : Resource allocation is the process of assigning resources to various project tasks. The key is to balance your resources to ensure that the project can proceed successfully toward its completion.
• Resource Leveling : This is a specific technique used to address disruptions in resource allocation. It involves adjusting the project schedule to ensure a balanced distribution of demand across resources, often by delaying tasks.
• Resource Smoothing: Another specific resource management technique, resource smoothing refers to balancing resources with the aim of keeping project schedules on track. This is usually done by considering task and resource dependencies.
• Resource Forecasting : This involves predicting future resource requirements based on current project trends and data. It helps proactively plan resource needs to avoid shortages and promote successful project delivery.

The Project Manager Vs Resource Manager

Resource management is sometimes undertaken by the specialized role of a resource manager. However, in smaller agencies, you’ll more frequently see project managers handling this as part of their responsibilities. This means collaborating closely with team and department leads, as well as clients, in order to ensure that resources are aligned with project requirements (check out more managerial roles examples ). In a larger agency or enterprise, the role of a project and resource management might be separate. Here, the project manager will concentrate on achieving specific project goals within a set timeframe, while the resource manager will focus on resource allocation and utilization across multiple projects. Resource management requires a strategic mindset for adapting to shifting priorities and resource availability while ensuring effectiveness.

The Main Challenges of Managing Resources

While we’ve covered the benefits of resource management, as well as the best software to achieve them, there’s still a significant topic left to talk about. What are some of the main difficulties in achieving successful project resource management? And even more importantly, how do you mitigate or avoid them?

1. Tackling Too Many Projects at the Same Time

According to research by Wellingtone, attempting to run too many projects was among the number one challenge for agencies in 2020. The reasons for this can be twofold — being aware of resource shortage and hoping to deliver a project regardless, or having insufficient data to understand the real picture of your agency’s resources. Another frequent problem is the lack of oversight. For example, a key team member might leave the agency without the leaders resolving their leftover workload effectively. According to Harvard Business Review , “many organizations lack mechanisms to identify, measure, and manage the demands that initiatives place on the managers and employees who are expected to do the work”. So, how can you best resolve this issue to ensure that you don’t find yourself in a tight spot in the future? Managing and forecasting your utilization is one way to improve your project portfolio management. With a project resource management software like Productive, you can gauge your resource availability for upcoming periods, and make informed decisions on whether you’re able to take on more client engagements. For example:

We have team X, whose Scheduled/Available ratio is 110% when looking into the upcoming quarter. This means that we’ll need an extra 10% of our current capacity to be able to do the work we have scheduled. Then we translate those percentages into the numbers of full time employees we actually need and signal this to HR so that they can start with the hiring process.

Read the full story: Resource Planning For Professionals: Managing 350+ People Using Productive

By accurately forecasting resource needs and translating them into actionable hiring strategies, agencies can maintain a balance between current capabilities and future project commitments. This promotes sustainable growth and operational efficiency.

2. Overemphasizing Billable Hours

Another frequently encountered issue is putting too much importance on delivering billable hours. While having high utilization is important, as working on client projects is essential to your agency’s healthy cash flow, ignoring crucial non-billable tasks can be just as detrimental to your growth. These non-billable tasks can include:

• Pitching for new projects
• Research and development
• Employee education and skill set building
• Various administrative tasks

These non-billable activities are essential for driving innovation, staying competitive, and enhancing the skill set of the workforce, which in turn leads to the delivery of higher-quality services. Additionally, they are crucial for building and maintaining client relationships and ensuring smooth internal operations. Therefore, striking a balance between billable and non-billable activities is key to sustaining an agency’s development, reputation, and financial stability in the long run.

MANAGE YOUR BILLABLE vs non-billable HOURS WITH PRODUCTIVE

3. Lack of Transparency and Communication

Lack of transparency and communication can be detrimental to your projects on multiple levels. On one hand, you have collaboration between project team members. If there is a lack of alignment between different teams and departments, this can lead to overlapping workloads, resource conflicts, or a lack of balance in how teams are utilized. This can result in disruptions in your project progress, which can impact your finances or delay important deadlines. When it comes to working with clients, miscommunication can lead to various issues, including scope creep or, ultimately, client dissatisfaction. This can impact your likelihood of cooperating with the same client on long-term initiatives. One way to resolve this is to implement a project resource management software solution that can provide project updates and data in real time. For example, with Productive you can manage key agency metrics in real time, such as profit margins or budget burn. You can deliver these insights to your clients. You can also invite your clients to your projects free of charge. They can view and comment on tasks, or even view their budgets with specific permissions.

KEEP TRACK OF PROJECT PROGRESS WITH PRODUCTIVE

Another great thing about Productive is that it serves as your central hub of project information. You can communicate on tasks to keep all project progress updates in one place. You can also use Docs to keep all crucial documentation in one place, collaborate with teammates, and even create tasks directly from pages. Another strategy is to conduct a project post-mortem after you’ve completed your deliverables — the idea is to go through various mistakes and challenges to foster honest feedback and improvements. In short, fostering a collaborative environment not only enhances team coordination and client engagement but can also improve efficiency and client satisfaction.

Takeaway: Effective Resource Planning for Agencies

Effective project resource management is the key to the success and growth of any agency. It ensures optimal utilization of resources, balances billable and non-billable tasks, and maintains clear communication and transparency. Implementing a comprehensive project resource management software, like Productive, can significantly streamline these processes. Such tools enhance project efficiency and team collaboration and also provide valuable insights for informed decision-making. This can lead to improved client satisfaction and business outcomes. If you’re looking for a resource management solution that can support business performance, consider booking a demo with Productive.

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From burnout to balance: using resource allocation to help teams do their best work

Build a healthy, happy, efficient team with these practical resource allocation tips.

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Summary: people-centric resource allocation sets projects on the right track from the get-go, giving team members complete visibility into their project schedule and allocating their time to projects they enjoy and excel at. Team-wide access to a dynamic resource allocation plan that includes each individual’s working hours, skills, location, utilization rates, time off, current workload, and tentative projects ensures work is consistently delivered on time and within scope—without causing burnout.

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In a perfect world, resource allocation would be easy: you’d line up your projects → divvy up your people’s time → and the project gets delivered . 

But as much as we wish it did, this pared-down process doesn’t even begin to represent the real world, where you—the long-suffering, caffeine-fueled people planner on the ground—are juggling:

• Limited resource availability and a large number of requests
• Team members with paid time off, national holidays, and the occasional cold
• A long list of existing projects (and plenty more in the pipeline)
• Your boss wanting you to deliver the project for Acme yesterday

The truth is that resource allocation is hard —but people just like you do it successfully every day.

This guide shares proven tactics from the resource managers , traffic and project managers, team leads, and people planners perfecting the art of allocating their team’s time accurately and sustainably.

What is resource allocation? A people-centric definition

In the project management space, resource allocation is the process of identifying and assigning available resources—including people, time, money, and equipment—to projects.

Allocating resources is easy when you’re a creative agency moving a camera from one shoot to another. Where resource allocation gets really tricky is when you’re the same creative agency moving the camera and also the tens or even hundreds of people involved in getting the work done. 

Suddenly, you have to consider factors like each team member’s availability , skill sets, and interests. You need to help them use their time productively while avoiding overutilization—not so easy when two of your digital designers are on parental leave, a copywriter has come down with the flu overnight, and (surprise!) an account manager is working remotely from a different time zone for the next month.

Making sense of all these moving parts and allocating the right resources is exceptionally challenging. But that elusive state called clarity (💡!) starts with a solid resource allocation plan. 

Your plan can look as simple as this…

Or as detailed as this:

📝 Note: because you’re dealing with people (and all the unpredictability that comes with them), your resource allocation plan itself should be viewed as a living entity that exists in a constant state of change. In other words, expect your carefully laid-out plans to be changing all the time.

How to allocate the right resources to the right projects

Allocating project resources effectively involves scheduling people onto projects to ensure work is delivered on time, on budget, and within scope, without causing burnout. Resources should be allocated based on project budget constraints, project requirements , timelines, and resource availability. 

But as a people planner tasked with allocating your team’s time to multiple overlapping projects, where do you begin?

We view effective resource allocation as a process that can be split into two simple steps:

• Identifying which projects to prioritize
• Determining who should work on them

Step 1: identify which projects to prioritize

At any point in time, several projects are being worked on while others are patiently waiting in the wings—but your team has a limited number of hours to get it all done. That’s why you need to prioritize projects and allocate your team’s time to those that increase profitability for your organization.

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Emily Feliciano

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Senior Creative Resource Manager at Atlassian

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Emily Feliciano, the Senior Creative Resource Manager at Atlassian, deals with up to 60 resource requests every week. To prioritize requests, she uses a set of questions based around business value, urgency, and cost.

 📈 Business value

• Are we mending a broken relationship with a client we really want to salvage?
• Is this a new opportunity to partner with a client we’ve been seeking for a long time?
• What is the priority of this work?
• What is the level of importance of getting this work accomplished?
• Is there flexibility in the timeline for us to deliver?
• Is there a large budget attached?

Once these questions have dictated priority, she starts allocating people’s time in her dedicated resource management tool, Float. 👉 Find out more about how Atlassian uses Float for project prioritization

Ideally, projects that contribute to core business metrics, are urgent, and have big budgets should be prioritized when allocating project resources. 

Here’s a decision tree to make it easier:

Step 2: work with your team to find the best people for a project

Once you have an idea of the projects you’ll soon be working on, it’s time to determine who can (and should!) take on the work.  

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: you’re working with humans, not machines, so it’s important to evaluate not just how much time they have available but also what their strengths are and whether a specific project sparks their interest. 

In other words, you need to know your team —easy enough when you’re allocating resources in a small, in-house team that does karaoke together every Friday; decidedly more complex when you’re doing it in a dispersed, global team of 100+ people, with multiple stakeholders involved. 

Maike Jahnens

Head of Financial Operations and Capacity Management at Scholz & Friends

There comes a time when larger and growing teams inevitably outgrow spreadsheets as a viable resource allocation and capacity planning tool . Maike Jahnens, the Head of Financial Operations and Capacity Management at global agency Scholz & Friends, oversees a team of more than 200 creatives and freelancers. 

In the past, Jahnens (understandably!) found it near impossible to stay on top of people’s names and roles—let alone their individual skill sets and interests. 

But after switching from a struggling spreadsheet to a dedicated resource management tool (it’s Float 😉), Jahnens has instant access to information like:

• What people are working on
• Where they’re based
• What language they speak
• What projects are in the pipeline 
• What their skills are

More than just simplifying the resource allocation process, having all this information about team members accessible at a glance has helped Jahnens get to know her coworkers on a deeper level —their strengths, interests, and areas for growth—and allocate their time to projects that truly inspire and energize them.

👉 Find out more about how Scholz & Friends uses Float to streamline resource allocation

Align each team member’s skills to the right projects

Do you have people with the necessary skills for the entire project lifecycle? Are you missing any additional resources? Do you need a generalist or a specialist? Or should you be looking outside your team and hiring a freelancer? 

For example, if you’re a digital marketing agency doing an SEO audit for your client’s website, you’d ideally allocate a technical SEO specialist instead of a generalist digital marketer.

💡Pro tip: you might be the person in charge of allocating people’s time, but these decisions should never be made in a silo. Keep communication lines open and involve your team and project stakeholders in the conversation as much as possible—this will positively influence your allocation decision-making.

Identify which team members are available

Allocating people with already stacked schedules can lead to work being done poorly to meet deadlines or constant context-switching. Your project might even grind to a halt because interconnected work won’t be delivered on time.

Consider these questions before allocating your team’s time: 

• Does anyone have time off planned during projects?
• Is anyone on sick leave?
• Are any national holidays coming up?
• What are their work hours (e.g. are they working full-time or part-time)?
• How much of their time is already allocated to other projects?
• Can their current allocations be negotiated?

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Simplify allocation with a dedicated tool

Adjust resources and timelines to changing priorities, and watch as your team’s schedule updates dynamically and in real time.

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Align allocations with your team’s interests

During the resource allocation phase, don’t miss the chance to allocate people to projects that interest or challenge them. You might be lurking in a Slack channel and seeing a team member expressing a desire to work on a certain kind of project 👀 Or perhaps you’re a team lead, and you think a direct report would do a fantastic job on a type of project that's entirely new to them.

People-centric resource allocation should be approached as an opportunity to grow and develop your team members’ skills.

Jason Fisher

Co-Founder and Global Studio Director at Flight Story

Jason Fisher is the Co-Founder and Global Studio Director of Flight Story, a marketing and communications company. 

When his resource management tool (yes, it’s Float) revealed that some team members were almost exclusively booked on one particular type of project, he decided to change things up.

Now, Fisher strategically schedules and manages team members’ jobs and projects so they can gain exposure to various aspects of their roles and explore different parts of the business.  

His entire team uses Float’s visual Schedule dashboard to see everyone else’s availability and skills, so they can reach out to any underallocated coworkers for assistance. Team members are also encouraged to volunteer their help work on deliverables that pique their interest when they have nothing firmly booked, putting them in the driver’s seat of their own career progression. 

👉 Find out more about how Flight Story uses Float for resource scheduling and allocation 

Resource allocation vs. task allocation: what’s the difference?

We’ve been talking about resource allocation for a while now, and you may have noticed that the concept of a ‘task’ hasn’t come up once. That’s because resource allocation is not the process of assigning project tasks to people. Here’s how they differ:

Resource allocation 

Resource allocation involves allocating the right people’s time—in hours or percentages—to projects that match their skills. Take a look at the example below: this creative agency has been tasked with the project of creating a print ad for the new Bose boombox, which will require 60 hours spread across the next 15 days.

In this way, a project is the high-level view of where your team’s attention will be focused on for the following weeks, months, or quarters. 

Resource allocation should ideally happen in your resource management tool , like Float, where your team’s skills, interests, and availability are visualized.

Task allocation 

Tasks are the individual activities involved in each project that you can log billable time against. Continuing with the creative agency/Bose print ad example above, your tasks might include copywriting, illustration, design, proofreading, and client review.

You should ideally allocate tasks in your project management tool, like Trello or Asana, where your team’s activities and time logs are stored. 

(That said, most resource management tools, including Float, do allow you create and track time on tasks, too. Video and animation agency Storm+Shelter were able to replace Asana and Everhour with Float , keeping their project and task allocation in one place.)

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📝 Note: because they serve different functions, we believe that having both a resource management tool and project management software in your tech stack is vital to project success and business growth. Take a look at our list of the best resource management software curated for you, complete with feature and pricing comparisons.

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4 signs you need to improve your resource allocation

Poor resource allocation can be glaring (bottlenecks that stall a project) or very subtle (overworked team members).

• 🧠 Too much context switching: if a team member is regularly jumping between different projects and trying to juggle a lot of work at the same time, the result will likely be subpar work and an unhappy, exhausted team member
• 🚧 Frequent bottlenecks: when projects are stalled because the necessary resources are unavailable, the next phase is blocked, resulting in paused projects
• 🗂️ Several active projects: too many projects taking place simultaneously can be a sign of inefficiency. Taking on projects without adequate capacity planning can lead to the first two problems of bottlenecks and context switching.
• 🔍 No unified view of team capacity: if you don’t know what people are working on, or what kind of resource utilization rate you’re dealing with, you have no way of knowing how well or poorly your people are being managed

4 common resource allocation problems (and how to handle them)

Even if you adopt all the right tools and follow resource allocation best practices, you’ll probably still run into some challenges of resource allocation—it’s the nature of the beast. But when these hiccups do happen, you can definitely know what to expect and be prepared. 

1. Project scope changes

You did your best to plan resources for your upcoming deliverables, but there’s still the chance of scope creep . Maybe the project was more extensive than expected or required skills you didn’t account for.

When this happens, you need to be nimble and adjust your resource planning accordingly. Here’s how: 

• Ensure project scopes are always transparent 
• Set clear and defined project goals
• Strive to do your best work, but don’t be a perfectionist if it will cause delays
• Build a work plan that guides your course of action
• Create a system that allows workers to greenlight change requests and revisions
• Monitor project team performance to ensure everything is on track
• Use all the tools at your disposal to speed up project progress

2. Resources become unavailable

We’ve already listed plenty of reasons a team member may unexpectedly be unavailable (a sudden bout of sickness, a time-zone change), and there are hundreds more where those came from. 

You can prevent this lack of resources in the future by looking at your allocation dependencies now . 

Investigate other responsibilities team members have that may pull them away from the project, like internal training initiatives or a company-sponsored volunteer day. It’s also always a good idea to have a backup resource allocation strategy in place for these types of eventualities—one easy option is to have a pool of reliable freelancers you can count on to fill in gaps fast.

Pro tip: simplify allocation with a dedicated resource management tool

It’s worth getting on our soapbox and mentioning again: a purpose-built tool like Float lets you filter and sort team members by skills and capacity and stay on top of any upcoming time off to determine who is best suited (and available!) for upcoming projects. 

Plus, if a project isn’t 100% confirmed yet, you can still schedule tentative projects and tasks to estimate timelines and allocate your team’s time accordingly. This way, if a particular skill is unavailable, you’ll have more than enough time to find an alternative.

3. Resources need to be shared

It’s common for projects to share the same resources; this is especially true in smaller organizations that can’t afford to hire an extensive staff roster. Shared resources can lead to issues that bog down the pipeline—and project bottlenecks may occur if people are spread too thin.

Resource management software helps you spot gaps in advance. Closely monitor the workloads of team members who move between several departments to prevent resource overallocation and burnout.

📝 Note: sometimes, even with careful, strategic planning, a project team might need to put in extra hours because you simply don’t have enough resources. While it’s not ideal and should always be a last resort, it happens. To prevent your team from getting too overwhelmed:

• Try to limit the extra workload to a short time to avoid exhausting your team
• Talk to your team about why the extra time is needed and what steps you’ll take to manage the workload , like finding extra help or hiring freelancers
• Make an effort to find extra support to lighten the workload for your team

4. Unexpected delays occur

A delay can hit when you least expect it. People get sick, labor shortages arise, and miscommunication happens. That’s when scope creep may rear its ugly head. Some issues are within your control; others, not so much.

The easiest way to manage potential delays is to… prevent them in the first place (easy! 😅). Do this by:

• Scheduling projects based on skill, not just time: an expert or specialist works faster, so use your resource management tool to create custom skill tags for team members and find the right person for the job in seconds
• Avoiding overallocation: team members should never be bogged down with too many other priorities, especially if a project depends on them to move through the pipeline
• Offering flexible hours: some employees work more productively outside of traditional working hours (as an async, distributed team, we can vouch for that—this article is being edited at 9pm in South Africa! 🇿🇦)
• Mapping out project timelines : break them into phases and track project progress. Software helps to pinpoint potential delays before they become bottlenecks.

The more organized and transparent your resource allocation, the easier it is for everyone to take accountability for their role.

Profitability starts with happy people

At the heart of our approach to people-centric resource allocation is the belief that team members are our greatest asset. And as a people planner, you’re in the unique position to foster healthy, happy teams who are motivated to do their best work every day. It all starts with a resource allocation plan that puts people front and center. 

Want to get started? Sign up for a free trial to give Float a try.

Allocate resources with the #1 rated resource management software

With Float, you can plan your projects and allocate resources with confidence. Try it free for 14 days, no credit card required.

Some FAQs about resource allocation

Resource allocation is the process of assigning and managing assets—such as people, tools, and budget—necessary for completing tasks and achieving project objectives. In agencies and professional services businesses, it involves effectively distributing team members (employees, contractors, freelancers) to various client projects and internal tasks to optimize productivity and client satisfaction.

The benefits of resource allocation include:

• Team members are used to their fullest potential, increasing their efficiency and contributing to their overall job satisfaction
• Allocating the right skills to the right tasks ensures high-quality deliverables
• Well-planned resource allocation helps streamline workflows, making processes more efficient and reducing delays
• Team members have more balanced workloads, which prevents burnout and overworking
• Businesses can stay agile by quickly reallocating resources in response to changing project demands
• Matching tasks to employees’ skills and development goals fosters a culture of continuous learning and growth
• Allocating resources in line with strategic goals ensures that team members’ efforts are focused on achieving key business objectives

Leadership plays a crucial role in effective resource management, helping the team to achieve maximum project success by:

• Setting clear goals and priorities for resource allocation
• Providing guidance and direction to ensure resources are allocated effectively
• Empowering teams to make decisions and take ownership of resource allocation
• Monitoring progress and providing support or intervention when needed
• Encouraging collaboration and communication among team members

Most of our customers switch from using spreadsheets or project management tools for resource allocation because they encounter one (or all) of the following:

• Their team grew and the spreadsheet became inadequate
• They need to do a lot of manual updating
• They couldn’t gauge availability of resources accurately

If you can relate to these, it means you too might need to switch to a resource management tool like Float.

Related reads

Resource allocation and capacity planning: what’s the difference.

A straightforward guide to resource planning (according to resource planners)

A guide to project resource tracking: 9 key metrics to keep an eye on

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• What is resource management? A guide to ...

What is resource management? A guide to getting started

Resource management is the process of planning and scheduling your team’s resources and activities—essentially anything that helps you complete a project. Developing a resource management plan can give you visibility into team member workloads. Learn how to manage resources and improve team performance.

Making sure your team doesn’t feel overworked or underutilized is a challenge you’ll often face as a leader. It's easy to lose sight of your team's workload and bandwidth. That’s where resource management comes in. 

Developing a resource management plan can give you consistent visibility into your team’s workload. It allows you to balance all your resources effectively and to see the full picture of how your team will achieve its goals.

What is resource management?

Resource management is the process of planning out and scheduling your team’s resources to optimize utilization and ensure project success. A resource can include everything from equipment and financial funds to tech tools and employee bandwidth—basically, anything that helps you complete a project.

When you’re deciding how to manage or assign your team’s resources, consider a few questions:

What is the availability of each resource?

What are the timelines for each activity?

How many resources will be required to accomplish each activity?

Who is the best person to accomplish the activity effectively?

Effectively managing your resources ensures every project is well-equipped and every team member is appropriately allocated, paving the way for successful project completion.

How to effectively manage your team’s workload

Learn how to leverage work management to distribute work more effectively.

Why is resource management important?

Resource management allows you to make sure your team members are confident with the amount of work on their plate and equipped with the tools they need to accomplish each task. When resource management is done right, you’re empowering your team to produce high-quality work at a sustainable rate. 

Benefits of resource management

Let’s dig a little deeper into why resource management is critical to your team’s success. With effective resource management, you can:

Distribute work appropriately , ensuring all your team members are appropriately staffed—not overworked or underutilized.  

Spot potential resourcing problems in real-time and adjust accordingly, preventing staffing issues from impacting progress on projects.

Give your team clarity around their responsibilities and the responsibilities of their team members, limiting misunderstandings and promoting accountability. 

Set realistic project goals , reducing the likelihood of missing important milestones and increasing the chances of on-time project completion.

Enhance your team's profitability by optimizing resource utilization and ensuring projects are completed efficiently and within budget.

Improve future resource planning by drawing on the knowledge gained to better estimate and forecast bandwidth for upcoming projects.

Resource management techniques

Leveraging resource management techniques is all about finding the smartest ways to use your team's skills and resources. Let’s explore a few common types of resource management methods.

Resource allocation

Resource allocation is more than just allocating resources to tasks and projects; it's the process of choosing the best resource based on the project team’s skills and capacity. After all, good resource management isn’t just about making sure you have enough resources; it’s about making sure you have the right resources for the right projects. Resource allocation can help you achieve this by strategically matching your team's strengths, capabilities, and resource capacity to the specific demands of each project.

Resource utilization

Resource utilization involves using tools like utilization reports and time tracking software to identify your team’s capacity over a specific period of time. It’s a capacity planning technique that allows you to identify whether project resources are being underutilized or overallocated, so you can better manage workloads.

Resource forecasting

Resource forecasting is a resource management process that involves proactively predicting the resource requirements for future projects and initiatives. You can identify these needs by relying on past trends and project metrics, as well as your team’s current capacity and the needs of upcoming projects. Resource forecasting is typically done during the project planning stage and can help with risk management by identifying potential resource bottlenecks or gaps in your team's availability in advance.

Resource leveling

Resource leveling is a resource management solution designed to combat shortages or overallocation by leveraging underutilized resources. For example, this might mean shifting work from one team member’s plate to another who has similar skills and additional capacity. Or, it could mean taking advantage of skill sets that typically aren’t utilized, like having a website content writer create social copy.

Types of resource management

Effective resource management is pivotal in steering any organization toward its goals. This process involves a strategic approach to managing various essential resources. 

Here, we focus on three fundamental types: human, financial, and material resources. Each category plays a unique role in the broader spectrum of resource planning and is a crucial component of any resource management plan.

Human resource management (work resources)

Human resource management is the strategic approach to managing a company's most valuable assets—its employees. This involves not just recruiting and hiring but also integrating workflow and automation tools to streamline training, performance assessments, and career development planning.

Example: A software company might enhance its human resource management by using workflow automation to efficiently align its workforce with emerging technology trends. This ensures that developers are systematically trained in the latest programming languages and Agile methodologies. By automating parts of the training and development process, the company can quickly adapt to changes in the fast-paced tech industry.

Financial resource management (cost resources)

Financial resource management is the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling financial activities such as procurement and utilization of funds. It involves making smart decisions about allocating financial resources to various projects or departments. 

Example: Consider a multinational corporation that allocates budgets across different regions, taking into account local market conditions, operational costs, pricing strategies, and revenue projections. This strategic financial management helps to ensure high-priority initiatives receive the necessary funding and resources to thrive. These resources, such as consulting or other professional services, are instances of tactical spending that are helpful but not the main purpose of budgetary allocation.

Material resource management (material assets) 

Material resource management involves the efficient planning, sourcing, and utilization of physical resources required for business operations. It encompasses inventory management, purchasing, and supply chain optimization to support the entire project lifecycle, from initial planning to final delivery. 

Example: A manufacturing firm may use material resource management to ensure a steady supply of raw materials like metals and plastics. By doing so, the firm can avoid production delays and cost overruns, thereby maintaining product quality and meeting customer delivery timelines.

5 step resource management plan

A comprehensive resource management plan is essential for any organization looking to optimize its resources effectively. This plan involves a series of steps that ensure resources are deployed efficiently and comply with both the project lifecycle and overarching business goals. 

Below are the five key steps in developing a solid resource management plan.

Step 1: Resource planning and budgeting

The first step in effective resource management involves detailed resource planning and budgeting. This process includes forecasting resource requirements and matching them to the available budget. 

Example: A tech startup, XYZ Software, begins its journey by planning resources for its innovative project management software. They forecast the demand for qualified software engineers and marketers, set aside money for cloud infrastructure, and make sure their financial resources are distributed effectively between development and marketing.

Step 2: Identify resources (capacity planning)

Identifying the right resources is make-or-break for any project's success. This step, often referred to as capacity planning , involves understanding the availability and skills of your workforce, as well as the physical and financial resources at your disposal. It’s about decision-makers being able to match the right resources with the right tasks, ensuring that your human, financial, and material resources are aligned with your project's needs.

Example: XYZ Software conducts a thorough analysis of its team's skills and identifies the need for additional software engineers with expertise in cloud computing. The company also assesses its current financial resources to ensure sufficient funding is available for these new hires.

Step 3: Allocate resources

Once resources are identified, the next step is their effective allocation. This involves assigning resources to various tasks and projects based on their availability and suitability. Resource allocation ensures that every project gets the necessary resources without overburdening any single aspect of the business.

Example: XYZ Software allocates its existing team to initial development phases, while the newly hired cloud experts are tasked with building the cloud infrastructure. Financial resources are allocated to ensure both teams have the necessary tools and software licenses.

Step 4: Resource tracking

Tracking resources throughout the project lifecycle is essential for ensuring that everything is proceeding as planned. This involves monitoring the usage of resources, assessing if they are meeting the project's requirements, and making adjustments as needed. Effective resource tracking helps in identifying potential shortages or surpluses early, allowing for timely corrective actions.

Example: As XYZ Software's project progresses, they use project management software to track the time and resources spent on each aspect of the project. By doing so, they are able to make adjustments in real time by identifying areas where resources might be overutilized or underutilized.

Step 5: Resource optimization

The final step in the resource management plan is optimization. This involves analyzing the performance and usage of resources and making necessary adjustments to improve efficiency. 

Resource optimization might include implementing automation tools to streamline processes or revising strategies based on performance data. Using resources as efficiently as possible is the aim, which will help the organization succeed as a whole.

Example: After launching the first version of their software, XYZ Software reviews their resource usage data. They realize that automating certain testing processes can free up developer time. This enables the team to focus more on critical tasks, thereby optimizing their use of human resources for future updates.

10 resource management best practices

Follow these ten best practices to boost your team’s productivity, hit project goals, and achieve a balanced team workload. 

Use a work management platform to streamline the planning process and ensure consistent, efficient allocation of resources across projects. While traditional resource management tools, like Gantt charts or spreadsheets, are useful ways to track capacity, their limited scope can’t match the extensive capabilities offered by a comprehensive work management platform. 

Measure available resources by gauging team capacity and necessary tools. This will help you ensure realistic resource allocation and avoid rescheduling issues.

Set start and end dates so you get a realistic timeframe for how long each task will take and set realistic expectations for your team. 

Know your employees’ skill sets so you can determine the best resourcing for each task. 

Set clear, accessible project goals to help you prioritize your team's work and drive high-impact work forward.

Help your team increase their utilization rate by automating routine, low-impact tasks so your team can focus on actionable, strategic, and billable work. 

Adjust resources as necessary because tasks, project timelines, and priorities change.

Keep some team bandwidth open for new work or priorities that might come up. 

Check in on your team to ensure each team member feels their work volume is fair and achievable. 

Connect your resource management plan to your operational plan in order to effectively manage your team's time and align daily tasks with strategic objectives. 

Manage your resources more effectively with a work management platform

To ensure you’re allocating resources effectively and aligning them to your wider organizational goals, use a work management platform. By centralizing project details and team capabilities in one platform, you can ensure efficiency, clarity, and alignment at every project stage.

Resource management FAQs

Have more resource management questions? We’ve got answers.

What is a resource management plan?

A resource management plan can help you manage and assign every type of resource you need for your project. An effective plan outlines the specific resources (including human resources, financial resources, technical resources, and physical resources) and activities necessary during the course of a project or initiative. 

Why is creating and implementing a resource management plan important? 

A resource management plan will guide you by giving a holistic view of all of a project’s moving pieces: budget, staffing and workload requirements, and tech stack limitations—allowing you to easily manage, schedule, and assign every resource while maximizing resource availability. Learning how to manage resources will empower you (and your team) to run projects effectively.

Should I create a resource management plan for my project?

The short answer is yes. Resource management in project management isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have to support your team and prevent burnout. The benefits of resource scheduling far outweigh the time it takes. 

The number of projects your team can handle, along with the quality of each, depends on it. As a project leader, resource management is your opportunity to optimize efficiency, prevent overwork, and effectively manage your team’s workload.

What is a resource management plan template?

A resource management template is a reusable guide that helps you manage team bandwidth over the course of a project. It shows you everything your team is working on—so you can see how full everyone’s plate is, if they can take on additional work, or if they need help to get project tasks done by the deadline. Thanks to your template, you don’t have to waste time setting up a resource management plan for every new project. Instead, you can just copy the template, fill it in, and start working.

What are the steps to creating a resource management plan? 

To create an effective resource management plan, leverage a tool like a work management platform, which will give you easy insight into what everyone on your team is working on, what resources are available, and how to prevent team burnout. Then, follow these steps:

Define the project’s goals to gain clarity on what each project entails and make it easier to know what resources you need and how to assign them. 

Align on the project scope by meeting with project stakeholders to define how much time and resources you should dedicate to the initiative. That will give you the best sense of the project plan and help you decide what resources are best suited for the job.

Identify the types of resources you’ll need —such as bandwidth, equipment, software, and project budget—so you can then identify what resources you have available.

Identify available resources by checking each resource you previously needed against what you have already available. Depending on the project scope, you might have to adjust your resource level and deprioritize other work to avoid putting too much on your team’s plate.

Kick off your project by clearly communicating the resource plan to your team, ensuring everyone understands their roles and the resources at their disposal.

Periodically check in on project progress to see how the project is progressing and whether you need to make adjustments to your resourcing strategy.

Related resources

Data-driven decision making: A step-by-step guide

How Asana uses work management for employee onboarding

4 ways to establish roles and responsibilities for team success

6 ways to develop adaptability in the workplace and embrace change

Resource Management in Projects: The Ultimate Guide

This blog is reader-supported. When you purchase something through an affiliate link on this site, I may earn some coffee money. Thanks! Learn more .

Projects are done by people. Whether that’s just you, or whether you have a team of many hundreds, a project team is how work gets done.

Working with people is the main part of project management. You need to know how to get people on your team and get them to do the work at the right times. Project resource management is how you do this.

In this article, I’ll show you what project resource management is, set out a simple process to do it, describe the tools to help and give you tips to overcome some of the common issues.

Resource Management Definition

Let’s start by defining resource management.

Resource management is simply planning, getting and using the resources you need efficiently .

What are the Types of Resource?

So what kind of resource are we talking about?

Mostly, when we say ‘project resource’ we mean people. However, a resource could also be:

• A room you need to book or hire, or other facilities
• Equipment, like a cement mixer or a sewing machine
• Raw “ingredients”, like sand or flour or other materials
• Services, like credit card processing services
• IT software or hardware
• Things that will be used up as part of the project, like flyers you give out to promote your new café opening

And most importantly:

• Money. Cash is a huge a resource for projects.

Generally, resources are either people, money or goods that you need to deliver your project.

The Project Resource Management Process

I’m broadly drawing this project resource management process from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( PMBOK Guide ®) – Sixth Edition, with my own explanations and interpretation. Below are the broad steps you would go through to manage resources on the project.

However, there is a new version of the PMBOK ® Guide out – the Seventh Edition, bundled together with The Standard for Project Management. That book does not talk so specifically about processes, but does talk about the need for creating a collaborative environment and good stewardship of the project and the team.

Check out the 12 principles of project management for more information. On the PMI website you can find the Standards Plus resource which is available to members, and that covers a wide range of topics too.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (also known as the PMBOK® Guide -- 7th Edition) is core reading as prep for PMI exams.

Step 1: Make a Resource Management Plan

Plan out what resources you need for the project. Basically this means making a big list, based on discussion with your team, and using information from the Project Charter, plan and your general business knowledge. You can then create roles and responsibilities, a RACI matrix, a project organization chart and resource breakdown structure.

You might want to take this even further and document exactly how you are going to estimate how much time resources will be required for, how you are going to ‘win’ scarce resources, and what risks you might face around securing the resources.

All of this gets written up into your Resource Management Plan. In my experience, it’s easier to include a short section in your main project management plan that covers resource management, instead of creating a separate document.

Step 2: Estimate Resource Requirements

Now you know the type of resource you need, you have to think about how much time you need them for.

You probably won’t need specialist subject matter experts throughout the life of the project – you’ll just call in the lawyers or the PR expert as and when you need them. But there are probably some people and materials you’ll need throughout the project.

In this step, you estimate what their commitment needs to be.

Step 3: Get the Resources

You know what you need. Now you need to do the negotiating, influencing, badgering to get the people and other resources you need at the times you need them. Jump through whatever hoops your business requires of you.

Note: You might have to review your project schedule and plans at this point because inevitably someone will have booked holidays at the exact time you need them to do system testing, or something. While this is a step-by-step process, you should approach it iteratively, and keep refining your resource management as necessary.

What is Resource Leveling? When you first get your resources and apply them to your project plan, the result is going to look uneven. You’ll have people supposed to be working 150 hours a week, and some individuals sitting around doing nothing on some days. Resource leveling is the task of smoothing it all out and rearranging resources to avoid burnout and keep the project moving forward. You might need to get extra people in during the busy points, or stretch out the project tasks over a longer period so one resource isn’t overloaded. Your goal is to get to a point where your planned resource utilization (how much resource you need) is the same as resource availability (how much resource you have).

Step 4: Manage the Team

As your project moves forward, you should show leadership and management skills. Here’s what it looks like:

• Make sure people know what they are supposed to do, when they need to do it, and who else should be involved.
• Set up team meetings.
• Give them access to project management software that they need to do their jobs.
• Meet with them regularly 1-to-1.
• Think about their training needs so they have the skills required to complete their tasks.

Basically, be a nice project manager to work with.

Holiday time is a particular point to be wary of. Think about how you (and others on the team) will handover work before vacation time so you are prepared.

If critical chain method for scheduling is new to you, then I recommend reviewing the basics because it will give you a different way to look at handoffs between individuals. It’s a way of rethinking the whole approach to resource dependencies, even if you don’t use the whole process on your project.

Step 5: Manage the Other Resources

While most of your resource challenges will probably come from the people, pay attention to the work required to deal with your other resources too.

Make sure suppliers have contracts and know what they are supposed to deliver when. Book or hire the resources you need in a timely fashion. Give them back when you don’t need them any longer. Be constantly looking ahead for when resources might trip you up.

An example: I was working on a project that needed a software update. We finished the work just before the end of year change freeze, so we delayed the update until the New Year. All fine. However, what I didn’t know was that as soon as change freeze was over, the infrastructure running the software was due for an upgrade. That meant I couldn’t get the software change through for another 6 weeks. If I had known about the resource dependency then, I would have tried harder to get the change completed and installed before the change freeze.

So what tools and techniques have you got at your disposal to manage all of this?

Project Resource Management Tools & Techniques

The first tool available to you is your brain. Much resource management relies on professional judgement and talking to the right people.

The second tool available to you is software. Many project management tools have resource management capabilities. More on those in a minute.

Then you’ve got more specific tools and techniques, the main one being…

Resource estimation is always tricky. People tend to be overly optimistic about how long they need to do a task.

People also often fail to factor in that if they are working on multiple projects , they are less productive and take longer to complete tasks because they switch between projects. So watch out for that.

Make sure the person responsible for doing the work also has some input into how long they think the work will take.

Tip: Schedule resources for only 80% of their time. People can’t be productive on your project 100% of the week. Everyone needs a coffee break. (Plus, they will answer calls and emails to do with other projects, have team meetings with colleagues that are nothing to do with your project etc.)

Other Tools and Techniques

There are lots of tools and techniques for project resource management. Here are the important ones (to me) are:

• Meetings (I still laugh that this is considered a tool/technique)
• Negotiation, because it’s tough to convince people to give up their good team members for project work
• Problem solving, so you can work out what to do when that lorry full of important materials doesn’t show up

And, of course, decent software to do the heavy lifting.

Common Resource Management Tools

Most project management software tools allow some degree of resource management. For example, MS Project lets you create a resource pool and assign tasks to an individual.

However, much resource management in project management software is incidental and really only relates to task allocation.

The problem then comes that you rely on communicating with other managers or you have to assume your resources will flag a problem with their availability. There comes a point when organizations need to start thinking about resource management best practice and use a tool that lets everyone see who is available when for what work.

Look for a tool that gives you:

• a resource management dashboard
• resource calendars
• the ability to do resource capacity planning and forecasting (because forecasting on projects is so important!)
• an easy to use interface.

Many people start out using spreadsheets or Outlook/Google calendar to manage resources, but it gets messy and they eventually need to graduate to something fit for purpose, like ResourceGuru .

What Does PRINCE2® Say About Resource Management?

PRINCE2® doesn’t say a lot about resource management. Resources are derived from the plan, and your planning activity includes assessing resource availability, assigning them to tasks and resource leveling.

The basic principle for resources is that they are released to the project manager on a stage by stage basis to give some control.

How to Deal with Project Management Resource Issues

Regardless of what tool you use, you will hit issues with resource management. Here are a few of the common ones and what you can do about them.

You have resource allocation issues

These happen when you can’t allocate people when you want to because they are busy and it’s one of the most common scheduling mistakes . They might be working on other projects, or they might be out of the business on vacation or planned medical absence, or maternity leave. Or for any reason.

Once I was waiting on someone to complete a task and then found out they had been made redundant the week before and no one had told me.

Fix by: Work hard to get visibility of resource availability. Talk to line managers. Ask people to tell you about planned absence. Build a culture of ‘team’ so that they think to tell you if they aren’t available. And be prepared to problem solve on the day you find out they aren’t around and you need them urgently.

You have productivity issues

You planned properly, with robust estimates, but you aren’t making as much progress as you think you should.

This can happen when your plan included generic or unnamed resources. The productivity of the person assigned to do the task is different to the fictional productivity level of the generic person on the plan.

For example, you may have estimated based on the assumption that a designer had 5 years’ experience, but you get an apprentice. They are still capable of doing a good job, but it takes them longer.

Fix by: Resource management best practice is to tweak the project plan to fit the productivity levels of named resources as soon as you know who they are . Keep your plan under review.

Your team doesn’t have the right skills

You might have great people, but they don’t have the right skills. That could happen because the requirement for a new skill comes later in the project, as you are working, and you didn’t foresee the requirement. Or just because your business doesn’t have people with those skills.

Fix by: Building training into your plan. The sooner you identify needs, the sooner you can make sure you upskill the team with coaching, mentoring, formal training or something else. Or you could decide to buy in a contract resource who does have the skill (in that case, plan in some knowledge transfer so you aren’t stuck when they leave)

Your estimates are no good

This can happen when the person estimating isn’t the person doing the work.

Fix by: There’s no easy win here. If your estimates are looking wonky, go back and re-estimate. Review the assumptions you made at estimating time. Get some help! And make sure the people doing the work are involved in saying how long it is going to take.

There we have it. Resource management is so important for project teams. It improves efficiency, keeps everyone on the same page and makes sure you’ve got the right people for the job available at the right time. In other words, you can’t manage a project without a good resource management process and the tools to support you.

Pin for later reading:

Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects .

Resource Scheduling in Project Management: Best Practices & Tips

Are you struggling to optimize resource scheduling in project management, leading to project delays and inefficiencies? Mastering the art of resource scheduling is crucial for successful project completion. By effectively allocating resources, you can enhance productivity, meet deadlines, and boost overall project performance. Stay tuned to discover how you can achieve optimal resource utilization and drive project success.

Key Takeaways

• Resource scheduling in project management is crucial for optimizing resources and ensuring project success.
• Key reasons for resource scheduling include maximizing resource utilization, preventing bottlenecks, and meeting project deadlines.
• Pre-scheduling considerations such as resource availability, skill sets required, and dependencies must be carefully evaluated before creating a schedule.
• Utilize various resource scheduling methods like Gantt charts, critical path method, and Kanban boards to effectively allocate resources.
• Best practices for efficient scheduling involve clear communication, regular updates, flexibility to handle changes, and prioritizing tasks based on importance and urgency.
• Efficient scheduling brings benefits like improved productivity, cost savings, better time management, and enhanced overall project performance.

Resource Scheduling Explained

Resource scheduling in project management involves allocating resources to tasks based on availability and skill sets. It entails identifying resource needs for each project phase, ensuring the right people are assigned to the right tasks. Effective resource scheduling is crucial for maximizing efficiency and meeting project deadlines.

Resource scheduling directly impacts project constraints such as time, cost, and quality . Proper allocation of resources ensures that projects are completed within stipulated timelines and budget constraints. Conversely, inadequate resource scheduling can lead to delays, cost overruns , and compromised quality, affecting overall project success.

• Organizational benefits of resource scheduling include optimized workforce utilization .
• Improved resource allocation through scheduling helps in preventing bottlenecks and optimizing task completion.
• Smart capacity planning enhances productivity by ensuring that resources are utilized efficiently.

Key Reasons for Resource Scheduling

Project success.

Resource scheduling plays a crucial role in ensuring project success by effectively managing the allocation of resources. It helps in optimizing resource utilization to meet project requirements efficiently. By assigning tasks based on availability and expertise, projects can be completed within set timelines.

Efficient resource scheduling directly impacts project outcomes by ensuring that the right resources are available at the right time. This leads to smoother workflow processes and minimizes delays, ultimately enhancing project delivery. Proper resource allocation contributes significantly to achieving project goals by maximizing productivity and minimizing bottlenecks.

Efficiency Boost

Resource scheduling enhances project efficiency by streamlining resource allocation based on project needs and priorities. It enables teams to work cohesively towards common objectives by ensuring that each member is assigned tasks according to their skills and availability. This systematic approach minimizes idle time and improves overall project efficiency.

Efficient resource allocation has a direct impact on project timelines as it reduces delays caused by resource shortages or mismanagement. By having a clear overview of resource availability and workload distribution, project managers can optimize schedules to meet deadlines effectively. This proactive approach results in improved project performance and timely deliverables.

Conflict Avoidance

Resource scheduling serves as a critical tool in avoiding conflicts within project teams by proactively managing resource allocation . By assigning tasks based on individual strengths and availability, potential conflicts arising from overburdening or underutilization of resources can be mitigated. This approach fosters a harmonious work environment conducive to collaboration and teamwork.

Effective resource scheduling prevents resource-related issues such as overallocation or double booking , which can lead to conflicts among team members. By maintaining a balanced workload distribution, organizations can prevent burnout and ensure equitable task assignments. Proactive conflict management through resource scheduling not only enhances team dynamics but also boosts overall project morale.

Pre-Scheduling Considerations

Resource availability.

Resource availability plays a crucial role in project scheduling, determining the pace and efficiency of tasks. It ensures that the right resources are allocated at the right time, optimizing productivity. Inadequate resource availability can lead to delays and bottlenecks in project execution.

Effective resource availability directly impacts project timelines by ensuring that tasks are completed within the set deadlines. When resources are readily available , it minimizes downtime and keeps the project on track. Conversely, resource shortages or conflicts can result in project delays and cost overruns.

The relationship between resource availability and project success is undeniable. Adequate resources ensure smooth workflow and timely completion of tasks, leading to successful project outcomes. Insufficient resources, on the other hand, can hinder progress and jeopardize project success.

Project Scope

Resource scheduling directly influences project scope by determining the allocation of resources based on task requirements. Proper resource allocation ensures that all project activities are adequately supported, preventing scope creep and ensuring project goals are met within defined parameters.

Aligning resource scheduling with project scope is essential for maintaining project alignment with objectives. By matching resources to specific tasks, projects stay focused on delivering intended outcomes without unnecessary deviations. This alignment enhances efficiency and prevents scope-related issues.

Effective resource scheduling positively impacts project deliverables by ensuring that resources are optimally utilized throughout the project lifecycle. Well-planned scheduling helps prevent resource conflicts and ensures that deliverables are produced according to quality standards and timelines.

Constraints Identification

Identifying constraints in resource scheduling involves recognizing limitations such as budget constraints, skill shortages, or equipment availability issues. This process allows for proactive mitigation strategies to address potential bottlenecks before they impact project progress.

Recognizing constraints improves resource allocation by enabling teams to allocate resources effectively based on identified limitations. By understanding constraints , teams can adjust schedules, reallocate resources, or acquire additional support to overcome challenges and maintain project momentum.

Addressing constraints in project management is crucial for mitigating risks and ensuring successful project delivery. By proactively identifying and addressing constraints, teams can minimize disruptions, optimize resource utilization, and enhance overall project performance.

Resource Scheduling Methods

Work breakdown structure.

A work breakdown structure (WBS) plays a crucial role in resource scheduling by breaking down project tasks into manageable components. This breakdown helps identify the resources needed for each task, facilitating efficient resource allocation. A clear WBS ensures that all project activities are accounted for and assists in determining the specific resources required for each task. The relationship between a well-defined WBS and efficient resource scheduling is evident as it enables project managers to allocate resources accurately based on the project’s scope and timeline.

Resource Smoothing Resource smoothing in project management involves redistributing resources to resolve any peaks and valleys in resource demand throughout a project. By optimizing resource utilization , this technique ensures a more balanced workload distribution among team members. Implementing resource smoothing techniques results in improved productivity, reduced bottlenecks, and enhanced overall efficiency in project execution.

• Enhances team morale by preventing overloading or underutilization of resources.
• Minimizes project delays by maintaining a consistent workflow.
• Improves resource efficiency by aligning resource availability with project requirements.

Resource Leveling

Resource leveling is essential in project management as it aims to avoid resource shortages or surpluses by adjusting the project schedule accordingly. This process balances the demand for resources with their availability, ensuring that no resource is overworked or underutilized during the project lifecycle. By managing resource demand and supply , resource leveling contributes to smoother project execution and reduces the risk of schedule disruptions due to resource constraints.

• Prevents burnout among team members by distributing work evenly.
• Enhances project flexibility by adapting to changing resource constraints.
• Optimizes resource utilization by aligning workload with available resources.

Best Practices for Effective Scheduling

Software utilization.

tware plays a crucial role in scheduling by streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency. Utilizing software tools enables project managers to automate project scheduling tasks, reducing manual errors. These tools provide real-time visibility into resource availability and allocation, aiding in making informed decisions promptly.

Effective scheduling software enhances resource allocation by optimizing utilization levels and preventing over or underallocation of resources. By utilizing these tools, project managers can assign tasks based on resource availability, skills, and workload capacity accurately. This ensures a balanced distribution of work among team members, leading to improved productivity and project outcomes.

The benefits of using software for efficient scheduling are manifold. It allows for better coordination among team members by providing a centralized platform for communication and task monitoring. Moreover, it enables real-time updates on project progress, facilitating quick adjustments to schedules based on changing priorities or unforeseen circumstances.

Wise Resource Assignment

Assigning resources wisely is paramount in ensuring the success of projects. Strategic resource assignment involves matching the right resources with the appropriate tasks based on their expertise and availability. By assigning resources strategically, project managers can optimize productivity levels and minimize bottlenecks in project workflows.

Strategic resource assignment directly impacts project outcomes by ensuring that tasks are completed efficiently within set timelines. When resources are allocated wisely, it leads to smoother workflow processes, reduced delays, and improved overall project performance. It fosters a sense of accountability among team members, promoting a culture of ownership and commitment towards project goals.

Wise resource assignment plays a pivotal role in determining the success of projects. It involves evaluating each team member’s strengths and weaknesses to assign tasks that align with their skill sets effectively. By leveraging individual capabilities through strategic resource assignment, project managers can maximize efficiency and drive successful project delivery.

Controlling Availability

Controlling resource availability is essential for maintaining project timelines and ensuring smooth execution. Managing resource availability involves monitoring each team member’s workload capacity and adjusting schedules accordingly to prevent burnout or overextension. By controlling availability effectively, project managers can avoid conflicts arising from resource shortages or overcommitment.

Managing resource availability directly impacts project timelines by preventing delays caused by inadequate resources or conflicting priorities. By implementing strategies such as capacity planning and workload balancing, project managers can ensure that resources are utilized optimally throughout the project lifecycle. This proactive approach minimizes risks associated with resource constraints and enhances overall project efficiency.

Effective control of resource availability involves establishing clear communication channels within the team regarding task assignments and deadlines. By fostering transparency around resource availability, team members can collaborate more effectively and prioritize tasks based on shared objectives. This collaborative approach promotes synergy within the team and enables smoother project execution.

Benefits of Efficient Scheduling

Time management.

Efficient resource scheduling plays a crucial role in time management by ensuring tasks are completed within set deadlines. By allocating resources effectively, projects can adhere to timelines and milestones, avoiding delays. Improved resource scheduling directly impacts project timeframes, enhancing overall efficiency.

In project management, the correlation between resource scheduling and time management is evident. When resources are allocated appropriately, tasks are completed promptly, leading to timely project delivery. Effective time management through resource scheduling involves prioritizing tasks based on their importance and urgency.

Cost Reduction

Resource scheduling significantly contributes to cost reduction by optimizing resource utilization and preventing wastage. Efficient allocation of resources minimizes unnecessary expenses, thereby positively impacting project budgets. Through strategic planning and allocation, costs can be minimized without compromising project quality.

When projects are managed efficiently through effective resource scheduling , the impact on project budgets is substantial. By aligning resources with project requirements, unnecessary expenses are reduced, leading to cost savings. Strategies such as resource leveling and critical path analysis help in identifying cost-saving opportunities.

Enhanced Productivity

Effective resource scheduling enhances project productivity by ensuring that resources are utilized optimally. Proper resource allocation leads to improved team performance and output, ultimately boosting overall productivity levels. The direct relationship between efficient resource management and enhanced team productivity is undeniable.

The link between resource allocation and team productivity is clear – when resources are allocated strategically, teams can work more efficiently towards achieving project goals. Improved productivity through proper resource scheduling results in faster task completion and higher-quality deliverables. By streamlining processes and eliminating bottlenecks, projects can achieve greater productivity levels.

Tips for Success in Scheduling

Know resource needs.

Understanding resource needs is crucial in project management as it ensures the right resources are available. Knowing requirements aids in planning resource allocation efficiently, preventing shortages or overallocation issues. Accurate assessment of resource needs directly impacts project success , ensuring tasks are completed on time.

Assigning resources wisely is essential for project success. Matching resources with tasks effectively improves productivity and quality. Wise resource assignment leads to better task performance, reducing delays and enhancing overall project efficiency. Strategies for optimizing resource assignment include considering skill sets, availability, and task requirements.

Be Aware of Constraints

Being aware of constraints in resource scheduling is vital for successful project completion. Recognizing constraints helps in making informed decisions regarding resource allocation , avoiding bottlenecks or underutilization. Addressing constraints promptly enhances project efficiency by ensuring resources are utilized effectively and obstacles are mitigated.

Implementing a Resource Schedule

Creating a template.

Using a resource scheduling template offers structure and consistency to the scheduling process. Templates provide a clear framework for assigning resources to tasks efficiently. They ensure that all necessary information is included, minimizing errors and confusion.

Templates streamline resource scheduling by standardizing the format and layout, making it easier to input and track data. This simplifies the process, saving time and reducing the risk of oversights or double bookings. By having a predefined format, teams can quickly understand schedules without extensive explanations.

Customized resource scheduling templates cater specifically to the project’s requirements and team preferences. Tailoring templates allows for the inclusion of specific fields or details crucial to the project’s success. This customization enhances clarity and ensures that all relevant information is captured accurately.

Assigning Tasks and Resources

Assigning tasks involves matching project activities with available resources based on skills, availability, and priority. Effective task assignment ensures that each team member receives clear instructions on their responsibilities within the project timeline. Aligning tasks with available resources prevents bottlenecks and delays in project delivery.

In project management, aligning tasks with resources is crucial for maximizing efficiency and productivity. It ensures that resources are utilized effectively, preventing under or overallocation. Strategies such as capacity planning, resource leveling, and skill-based assignments help optimize task allocation for better outcomes.

Effective task and resource assignment involve considering factors like resource availability, skill sets required for tasks, dependencies between activities, and deadlines. Proper alignment ensures that projects progress smoothly without unnecessary delays or resource constraints.

Tracking and Adjustments

Tracking resource allocation throughout a project provides insights into resource utilization rates, identifying any potential issues early on. Monitoring resource usage helps in identifying bottlenecks or areas where additional resources may be required to meet project deadlines effectively.

Continuous tracking of resource allocation enables project managers to make timely adjustments based on real-time data. By monitoring actual resource usage against planned allocations, teams can address discrepancies promptly to prevent schedule disruptions or budget overruns. This proactive approach enhances overall project performance.

Optimizing resource scheduling requires ongoing monitoring of resource utilization trends, identifying patterns that may impact future projects positively or negatively. Continuous tracking facilitates informed decision-making regarding resource allocation adjustments to maintain project timelines and quality standards.

Advanced Tools and Software

Management software benefits.

Utilizing management software for resource scheduling offers numerous advantages. These tools automate processes, increasing efficiency. By integrating legacy tools into modern software, project managers enhance resource allocation accuracy. Skills are optimized through user-friendly interfaces, simplifying complex scheduling tasks.

One key benefit of management software is its ability to streamline the resource allocation process. This advanced tool enables quick identification of available resources, reducing time-consuming manual checks. With a click, managers can assign tasks based on availability and expertise, ensuring optimal resource utilization.

Another advantage lies in the efficiency boost provided by management software. These tools facilitate collaboration among team members, enhancing communication and coordination. Project timelines are met more effectively as schedules are dynamically updated in real-time, keeping everyone informed and aligned.

Real-Time Tracking Features

Real-time tracking features play a crucial role in enhancing resource scheduling accuracy. By providing instant updates on resource availability and task progress, these features enable swift adjustments to schedules. Managers can make informed decisions promptly, preventing delays and optimizing project timelines.

The importance of real-time tracking cannot be overstated in effective resource allocation. With this feature, project managers have a clear view of the entire project landscape at any given moment. They can identify bottlenecks, redistribute resources as needed, and maintain project momentum seamlessly.

Utilizing real-time tracking offers various benefits for efficient resource scheduling. Managers gain visibility into project status instantly, allowing them to address issues proactively. Team productivity increases as resources are allocated optimally based on real-time data, fostering a collaborative work environment.

Closing Thoughts

In mastering resource scheduling in project management, you’ve learned the crucial role it plays in optimizing workflows, enhancing productivity, and ensuring project success. By understanding the importance of effective scheduling methods, considering key factors beforehand, and implementing best practices, you’re equipped to navigate the complexities of resource allocation with finesse. Leveraging advanced tools and software can further streamline your scheduling processes, leading to more efficient project outcomes.

Now that you have a comprehensive grasp of resource scheduling strategies and their benefits, it’s time to put your knowledge into action.

Now that you have a comprehensive grasp of resource scheduling strategies and their benefits, it’s time to put your knowledge into action. Start implementing these insights into your project management approach to witness tangible improvements in efficiency and results. Embrace the power of strategic resource scheduling to drive your projects towards success and achieve your goals effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is resource scheduling in project management.

Resource scheduling in project management involves allocating and managing resources like people, equipment, and materials to ensure tasks are completed efficiently within the project timeline.

Why is Efficient Scheduling Important for Project Success?

Efficient scheduling ensures optimal resource utilization, timely task completion, cost control, and overall project success by minimizing delays and maximizing productivity.

What Are Some Pre-Scheduling Considerations to Keep in Mind?

Before creating a resource schedule, consider factors like resource availability, skill requirements, task dependencies, and potential risks to develop a realistic and effective schedule.

What Are the Benefits of Using Advanced Tools and Software for Resource Scheduling?

Advanced tools and software streamline scheduling processes, offer real-time visibility into resource allocation, enhance collaboration among team members, and provide data-driven insights for informed decision-making.

How Can Best Practices Improve Resource Scheduling Efficiency?

Adhering to best practices such as setting clear priorities, regular communication with team members, monitoring progress consistently, and adapting to changes promptly can significantly enhance resource scheduling efficiency.

to witness tangible improvements in efficiency and results. Embrace the power of strategic resource scheduling to drive your projects towards success and achieve your goals effectively.

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Resource Allocation – The Guide for Project Managers and Resource Managers

Resource allocation helps you to choose the best available assets for multiple projects and manage them throughout the work, so you can avoid under or overutilization of your employees. Sadly, not all project managers use it to their advantage. 

What will you get thank to this article:

• How resource management software solves resource allocation obstacles
• How does it look resource allocation in project management
• Differences between resource allocation, resource scheduling, and resource management
• Common resource allocation obstacles
• How to implement efficient resource allocation in your organization

Only 26% of companies always use resource management to estimate and allocate resources, and 36% of them do it often, according to the PMI survey (“Pulse of the Profession”).  At the same time, less than 60% of projects meet the original budget and barely 50% of them are being completed on time, the same study says.

The functions of resource allocation in project management processes

Resource allocation in the context of project management and its process.

Many project managers who want to introduce what project management is, use the Project Management Institute (PMI) definition. According to the last one, project management is about using whatever it takes to deliver something helpful to people – as they say, to “deliver value to people”. 

To be more precise, the APM believes that project management is about using some competencies, abilities, talents, expertise, tools, machines, instruments, software, methods, techniques, and processes to “deliver value to people”. 

The phrase “value to people” stimulates us to suppose that outcome of project management could be everything. A house, an app, a park, or even some social movements, including a crusade, LGPT, or religion. Anything which is useful for some digit of individuals.

The above-mentioned comments are the reason why we – the business-embedded people – use the definition proposed by the Association for Project Management (APM). The proposed understanding of project management contains criteria that help with splitting just management from project management. Let’s take a look:

Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverables that are constrained to a finite timescale and budget.

When we compare both the APM and the PMI definitions, we see some nearness. Both are about running things and using knowledge, experience, methods, etc get the things done.  But only the last characterization of project management is – we’d like to say – businesslike. 

The time, budget, and “project acceptance criteria” are the aspects of – let’s say – the real project management (and of course, resource management or resource allocation processes). All we know is that in the business relations world any project has its objective. And any has to be done at a certain time, within a given budget, and must be endorsed by the principal – whether a customer or a director in your company.

And here is the main distinction between management and project management. Just management is a continuous, ongoing process. Project management has its final outcome provided within a finite time span and budget. 

This distinction has the consequence that project management is not just a process, but a structured process. It is called the project management life cycle and it usually takes the form of 5 phases. 

• Initiation and conception
• Project planning
• Launch and execution (including resource planning and resource allocation)
• Monitoring and controlling
• Project closure

Just like the Ganntic company – our competitor in the resource allocation systems market – resource allocation and resource planning (its an alternative term for resource management) are aspects of the project management life cycle process. They are responsible for planning, organizing resources (employees), and measuring their productivity (yes, it’s the 4th phase of the project management process mentioned above). 

Resource allocation – the most difficult part of the project management process

Now we know where to find resource management in the context of the project management life cycle. It’s time for understanding resource management. Why? Because resource allocation is part of resource management, and resource management – as you already know – is part of project management processes.

Thanks to the APM Body of Knowledge, we know resources are understood very widely. Money, tools, machinery, technology, and – the most important one – people and their skills. Resources mean everything that is requested to finalize a task and project.

So what’s the connection between resource allocation and resource management (resource planning)? Let’s take a look at the definition given by the APM. For them, resource management is: 

(...) acquiring, allocating and managing the resources(...) required for a project. Resource management ensures that internal and external resources are used effectively on time and to budget.

As we see, identical to the definition of project management, time and budget are those aspects that are critical in this process. And we shouldn’t exclude “acceptance criteria” as well. 

Nevertheless, resource management is understood as the process of planning, selecting, scheduling, and allocating resources to meet the acceptance criteria and finish the project.

In resource management and resource allocation as the element is about identifying available and sufficient resources, and matching them with appropriate tasks at the right time. And the function of the resource or project manager is to identify the employees with relevant skills and experience (so-called, resources) to deliver the work, (its part of planning), and decide when the particular resources will be required (via resource allocation or resource scheduling).

This article could force some less experienced ones to think it shouldn’t be difficult to do. So, at the end of this chapter, we’re going to use the annual report that comes from Wellington company.

Very serious and very various images of resource allocation in project management

Before we will talk about the meaning of resource allocation in project management, let’s begin with an understanding of one of the most important terms in this article – resources. Thanks for this introductory paragraph you will better feel the differences between some definitions of resource allocation mentioned in the paragraph below.

As you can imagine, resources can be absolutely different – from material to non-material. And is no different in the context of resource allocation but understanding what “resource” means depends on the industry where is in use.

• Equipment and tools
• Facilities (workspace, offices, etc.)
• Materials (gas, fuel, desks, cars, etc.)
• An employee, a team member, and her/his skills – here are the resources in project management

Resource allocation – the meanings’ comparisons and propositions

In this chapter, you’ll see many brands – including our business competitors.  We compare a few definitions and meanings presented by Brittanica Dictionary, but also our well-recognizable competitors – Wrike, Resource Guru, or TeamGantt company. The meanings from more general to more exact and related to project management activities.

Cambridge Dictionary informs that resource allocation is

a process of dividing money, skills, etc. between departments of an organization.

More strict in another very recognizable Brittanica Dictionary, that suggests the economical background of our term. Allocation of resources is understood as an:

apportionment of productive assets among different uses. (Brittanica Dictionary)

But – as a part, let’s say, a project management industry – we will be focusing on meaning connected to this branch. So, Float – our competitor and well-known resource allocation in project management software provider – informs us in one of its blog articles that r esource allocation is the process of appointing and handling assets to help a team’s tasks, projects, and strategic objectives.

But when continuing reading and being more accurate, Float emphasizes two aspects of resource allocation. The first is the matching. Allocation means matching employees’ or team members’ competencies, and experience to the right projects or tasks. And (relevant) matching is one of two key elements of its resource allocation understanding. 

And secondly, ensure each team member, and each employee taking part in the project is able to execute every assignment and any task in the pipeline.

From Saviom’s perspective, another software that is aimed at helping project managers in resource management processes:

Resource allocation, also known as resource scheduling, recognizes and assigns resources for a specific period to various activities.

These activities – as we read in other places written – can be related to the project or cannot. Admin, support, operation, etc. Here Saviom draws attention to recognition as the first important element of a resource allocation process. Second – like many others – assigning. The third element is “specific period”.

On the website projectmanager.com we’re informed that the resource allocation term means the same as resource management and resource scheduling (more about that in the next paragraph). And actually, from their perspective, resource allocation is just a resource scheduling that takes into account available resources required by a task or project to be finished with expected results.

Closing this chapter, we would say simply:

Resource allocation simply means assigning resources (mostly people, their skills, including their availability, current or previous performance, and time management skills) across various tasks in a project to work toward your deadlines in the most effective and economical way possible.

Resource allocation de facto involves the availability of resources, current and expected skills, (participating in processes that will ensure the use of available resources, either alone or in cooperation with HR or an external company), experience (both project managers and employees), estimations, dependencies, priorities, and change requests that appear during the whole journey of product development or project management.

From this point is entitled to say that the last one meaning suggests that resource allocation is a result of many choices behind it. The last decision of choosing the right resources is preceded by micro-decisions that influence team performance and determine the project’s success.

Resource allocation vs a few other terms  – they aren’t the same?

This part could be also the part above but because of its importance, we’ve decided to talk about this topic in a separate paragraph. Why? 

Treating “resource allocation” as a synonym for “resource scheduling” (i.e. Saviom) and even “resource management” (i.e. Project Manager) isn’t quite new. But the project manager’s environment and university representative, there is no consent to equate one term with another or a third. For some of them, allocation of resources is a resource management process.  

In Wikipedia, we witnessed such information which isn’t quite close to PMI suggestions:

In project management, resource allocation or resource management is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource availability and the project time. 

From the Project Management Institute’s perspective, it’s not quite true. A few of the aspects presented above definition are true: availability of resources and project time. But what about the budget? Mostly the budget determines the time when something can be done. Because, if you have the budget, you can get decide the accessibility of resources – people participating in the project and any other resources (tools, equipment, etc.).

Resource allocation also takes into account the availability, capacity, and utilization of resources across a firm but should not be confused with resource scheduling.

From the visual-planning.com perspective:

Resource scheduling refers to the set of actions and methodology used by organizations to efficiently assign the resources they have to jobs, tasks, or projects they need to complete, and the schedule starts and ends dates for each task or project based on resource availability.

Float suggests resource scheduling is a process used by teams to organize and structure their employees so the tasks they need to complete are scheduled based on availability and capability.

But Resource Guru emphasizes the role of recognizing or identifying the accurate wink when resources should be assigned. They understand resource scheduling as a process of identifying precisely which resources are required and then scheduling when they’re needed. From this perspective, properly allocated resources are the result of very good identification of employees with relevant skills (or just suitable skills among available employees) that assure the project will be done with expected requirements. Of course, this assumes a project or resource manager that can perfectly, or at least very well, assess employees’ potential and their helpful role in a particular project. 

Nevertheless, keeping the above considerations in mind and those about resource allocation in project management, it’s hard to resist the feeling that understanding the role of allocation of resources has appeared many times as a part of project resource management or even the resource scheduling process. But treatment as a synonym is also legitimate.

The most important metrics for resource allocation in project management?

• Availability 
• Resource utilization – the utilization rate planned for employees to be realized during the project against their total capacity.
• Estimated vs. actual cost per team member (aka resource cost variance)
• Estimated vs. actual hours worked per team member
• Billable vs non-billable hours

Problems faced by r esource allocation in project management 

Resource management is prone to several challenges that you need to be aware of to properly allocate resources and manage them throughout the project.

1. Client changes

As a project manager, you might have already experienced how changes to the scope, timeline or budget can affect project delivery. With resource allocation, it’s actually the same – having an up-to-date resource calendar will help you to smoothly adjust resources once the changes appear.

2. Availability of resources

Starting off a new project , ideally, you could use any resources you need that are available at your company. But what if your agency is running multiple projects and you have to negotiate over the same resources with other PMs? Or what if a given team member is out on their sick leave? Availability changes and you have to monitor it all the time to spot threats to your project’s delivery.

3. Project dependencies

Allocating resources you need to include project dependencies, which are a form of a relationship between the tasks or activities in the project. For example, in IT projects there are tasks that can only be done after some other ones are completed, so there’s no point to hog resources early on.

4. Project uncertainties

Even if you’ve checked all the boxes when starting off a project, and agreed on the timeline , the budget, and the scope, there’re always things you can’t predict. Resource management requires you to be able to respond to proje ct uncertainties, e.g. by shifting resources from other projects or re-assigning them.

5. Priorities across the company

If your company runs multiple projects simultaneously, you and your peers may have to share limited resources, very often in a similar timeframe. But even if you manage to negotiate over resources you both need, there may be a change in priorities regarding one of the projects.

Resource allocation in project management – how to do it better?

Let’s take a look at how to effectively use the resources at your disposal.

1. Know the project and the team

Only by knowing the scope and resources available at your company, you can properly assign team members to your project.

Start by creating a high-level plan of the project , consisting of its requirements and deliverables. Then, as you know exactly whom you will need to complete the project, you can use a skills matrix to discover which employees at your company to involve.

Or, if you’re a Teamdeck user, you can simply filter your employees by their skills, spotting relevant employees and their existing bookings in no time:

As you’re filtering by the people you’d like to book for your project, check their availability to see if they are actually free to join your project. The simple availability bar helps a lot:

At this point, the rule of thumb is to not get carried away and over-allocate resources for the project. Actually, resource-hogging is considered a mistake project managers make to protect themselves from uncertainties. But, in turn, it makes project estimates and long-term plans inaccurate, affecting the company’s bottom line.

Always think of the big picture while allocating resources. Check the bookings already made by other PMs to spot resources you may both need, in case you should adjust your schedule to that.

Knowing when your team members have their days off helps, too. See the yellow entries below? You need to include them in your estimate, as that’s exactly when these employees will be unavailable. Similarly, you can spot national holidays taking place during your project.

2. Uncover risks early on

We’ve talked about it a bit in the resource management challenges section. As a project manager, you are well aware of risks like client reviews, delays, personal emergencies, competing projects, etc. They interfere with the allocation of resources, too.

Once one of the above-mentioned challenges occurs, you need to adjust your bookings. Having a high-level overview of resources at your organization will help you find other resources more quickly, re-allocate resources, extend or cut existing bookings, or even delete some if needed.

3. Keep track of the project

Remember how resource allocation is about improving the effectiveness of your team’s utility? Now is the time to check how you’re team is doing. You can do it by measuring resource utilization .

Start with tracking the time and workload. In Teamdeck, you can easily spot employees with too much or too little (which can also be an issue) to do. Remember the availability bar? Overtime is marked with red color, while the unutilized time is white.

Measuring resource utilization, you can also use a simple formula:

Resource utilization = Busy time / Available time

This way you can quickly find out whether your team is booked to its full potential, or not.

During the project, it’s also recommended to compare estimates with actuals once in a while and re-allocate resources if you need to. Chances are that because of some changes you need to adjust bookings to avoid under or overutilization of your resources, and to meet the project’s requirements.

Setting up regular check-ins with your team will help you to spot these threats, too.

As a project manager, you may also be responsible for tracking your project’s budget . You can do it based on your team’s timesheets, multiplying the number of hours they’ve spent on the project by the rate you charge your client per hour. Again, by comparing estimates with actuals, you can see if you’re on the budget, or not.

4. Analyze the project

Using the data you gathered during past projects will give you a huge advantage. Based on that data, you will be able to better plan and manage your future projects. Having a resource management software with custom reports helps a lot, as you can then organize that data to calculate different metrics, like employee payroll or sales KPIs .

Benefits of resource allocation

As you can see, by following the right processes and using a complete resource management tool, you can make resource allocation easier and benefit from it in many ways:

• It improves the visibility of all resources across the company
• You can avoid under and over-utilization easier
• It helps to keep bookings more accurate
• It’s easier to negotiate bookings with other PMs

Are you looking for software to increase resource allocation in project management? Try Teamdeck – the dedicated solution for resource allocation

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Resource Scheduling In Project Management: A Beginner’s Guide

Resource scheduling deals with assigning resources to project tasks and scheduling these tasks in a way that optimizes the use of resource availability and skills.

Done right, it helps project managers meet project deadlines while ensuring project quality and better project profitability. With poor resource scheduling, you run the risk of allocating the wrong resources to the wrong tasks. This, in turn, causes project delays as well as stress and the risk of resources burning out.

In this guide, you’ll learn everything about resource scheduling, along with its benefits, types, and process steps.

Ready to learn how to utilize your available resources optimally?

Let’s dive in.

What is resource scheduling in project management?

Resource scheduling in project management is a process by which a project manager assigns capable and available resources to a scheduled task.

Scheduled tasks have specific start and end dates. Project managers need to meet resource demand during these dates by looking at resource capabilities and availability. To schedule resources, managers must balance two goals:

• Assign the most capable resources to a task. The most efficient resources will help you get project tasks done on time, without sacrificing quality.
• Assign only the available resources. This helps avoid scheduling conflicts with other assignments and time off.

Scheduling resources happens during the project planning phase but after resource allocation. Where resource allocation deals with booking resources for a project, scheduling refers to assigning resources to tasks with specific start and end dates.

Who is responsible for resource scheduling?

Project managers are responsible for scheduling resources.

Depending on the organization’s size, allocating resources can be the responsibility of either project managers or resource managers. However, project managers know the project schedule best. They also understand the most critical tasks in a project.

This makes them the best person to plan and manage the resource schedule.

Project and resource planning tools help managers schedule resources by giving them a clear overview of the project’s schedule against resource availability.

Importance of resource scheduling

Resource scheduling is a critical step in project management. It helps project managers achieve the following project goals:

Deliver projects on time

When you ensure that adequate resources are available for critical tasks, you’re automatically setting up the project to meet deadlines. Not having a resource schedule results in delayed tasks and halts the project schedule.

Maintain project quality

By ensuring that the most effective resources are assigned to critical tasks, you ensure that the project quality isn’t compromised. The resource scheduling process ensures that task demands are matched by resource skills.

Optimize resource utilization

Having specific assigned start and end dates helps managers assess actual resource needs. This helps avoid overallocation that may have crept in during allocation. It also ensures that critical resources aren’t underutilized.

Improve project profitability

When you can deliver a project on time with optimum resources, it results in lower project costs. It also keeps your team’s morale high and lowers work-related stress. As a result, you save on recruitment costs . Thus increasing project profitability.

Review the resource plan

Creating a resource schedule is also an opportunity to revisit your project resource plan before the project execution phase. Any resource planning mistakes can be weeded out and fixed at this stage.

Resource scheduling methods

All project resources (people, equipment, materials, etc.) are bound by project and resource constraints . Keeping these in mind, there are primarily three types of resource scheduling in project management.

Time-constrained scheduling

Time-constrained scheduling is used for projects with strict deadlines.

The only option here is to allocate more resources when a project falls behind schedule because of resource constraints.

For example, a content writing agency doesn’t have the resource capacity to deliver copy requested by a new client. To keep the client happy, the agency decides to hire freelance writers and deliver the copy by the end of the month.

Resource-constrained scheduling

This method applies when your clients are flexible about the project schedule or scope.

You have two ways to resolve resource constraints with this method—adjust the project schedule or reduce the project scope. Clients are often happy to change the project schedule than change the project scope.

For example, the same content writing agency could choose to deliver fewer pieces of content depending on resource availability.

Cost-constrained scheduling

With cost-constrained scheduling, you can change the project scope or allocate resources with lesser skills. The choice largely depends on your clients.

For example, the content agency’s clients may decide to reduce content costs during a downturn. They could choose to go with fewer pieces of content or hire cheaper freelance writers.

How to create a resource schedule in project management?

The resource scheduling process is the last step in project planning before the project execution begins.

Before managers can assign a team member to a task, they need to identify tasks, create a project schedule, and finally review skills and availability. In addition, they need to track and monitor the resource schedule throughout the project life cycle to account for last-minute changes.

For effective resource scheduling:

Step 1: Identify project tasks using WBS

WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) is a popular tool to break a project down into deliverables and deliverables into tasks.

A project has many unknowns. By breaking it down into deliverables, managers are able to identify the exact tasks required to deliver. It also helps prioritize critical deliverables and the critical tasks needed to complete the entire project.

At the end of this exercise, the project team has a task list to deliver each component of the project.

Step 2: Create a project timeline

Now that you have a list of tasks, you can create a project schedule.

A project schedule adds start and end dates to each task in the task list. It helps clarify the project plan and outline completion dates for the stakeholders. In addition, it helps the manager identify how many resources are needed and when.

The order in which the tasks are scheduled is decided by various factors, including project priorities, dependencies, and resource availability.

You can easily create a task list and the project schedule in a spreadsheet. However, for effective resource scheduling, a project timeline provides a better visual overview.

Step 3: Assign tasks based on resource capabilities and availability

As you already know, a resource schedule is prepared considering both resource capabilities and availability.

In the case of human resources, capability equals skills. Sometimes it could also mean experience or professional certifications. Depending on the resources required, a manager needs first to identify the people with the right skills.

The next thing a manager looks at is availability. They need to ensure that the critical resources with the necessary capabilities are available for the scheduled tasks. In addition, a manager also needs to keep future availability in mind. This ensures that the resource is still available if a task gets delayed.

Again having a visual timeline helps you better map your team’s schedule.

Step 4: Track the actual time spent on assignments

Time tracking is crucial for every project. As a manager, it helps you understand the following:

• Is any task taking more time than initially estimated and can potentially mess up your resource schedule?
• Are resources over, under, or optimally allocated?
• Are you optimizing resource utilization and, as a result, improving project profits?

In summary, a time-tracking tool like Toggl Track to stay on top of resource scheduling. It’ll help you identify risks in your schedule before they start affecting a project’s success.

Step 5: Monitor and adjust the resource schedule

The final step in resource scheduling is to track project resources to identify and mitigate risks that can arise either because of over-allocation or resource scarcity.

Time tracking , keeping an eye on the project’s progress, and your team’s workload will help you identify resource risks. Once identified, you can then adjust the schedule with the following methods:

• Reassign tasks : Where possible to overcome small hiccups in the schedule.
• Resource leveling : Changing the project schedule, including start and end dates, where clients are flexible about the timeline.
• Resource smoothing : Allocating additional resources where the project deadline is fixed and can’t be changed.

Resource scheduling software and tools

You can use an Excel or Google Sheets resource scheduling template . And these are ok for small projects.

Most resource scheduling software today comes with drag-and-drop timelines. This makes it easy to adjust the resource schedule on the fly and plan collaboratively. Using a resource scheduling tool helps you:

• Get a bird’s eye view of your resource schedule.
• Quickly plan or adjust a resource schedule for your project.
• Plan your team time collaboratively, even with a distributed team.
• Monitor projects and track resource workloads.
• Maintain data from previous projects to make future scheduling easier.

Here’s a quick comparison of the top three project and resource scheduling tools:

Simplify resource scheduling with Toggl Plan

Excel and Google Sheets work ok small teams working on simple projects. But they often fall short when you take on multiple projects and have to manage multiple teams.

Toggl Plan is a simple, visual project and resource planning tool that helps you:

• Schedule resources with unlimited drag-and-drop team timelines.
• Collaborate with other project managers for effective resource scheduling.
• See who’s doing what and when. Visualize workloads.
• Track time spent on tasks using a simple, two-way Toggl Track integration.
• Plan time off and availability. Avoid scheduling conflicts.

Want to take Toggl Plan for a spin? Sign up for a free 14-day trial now .

Jitesh is an SEO and content specialist. He manages content projects at Toggl and loves sharing actionable tips to deliver projects profitably.

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A guide to resource scheduling in project management

When it comes to project management, making sure you have the right people, equipment, and facilities available and in the right place is essential to success. That’s where resource scheduling comes into place. Part of resource management, resource scheduling makes sure that you have everything in the right place at the right time.

In this article we’ll dive into the ins and outs of resource scheduling, why you need it, its benefits, and how monday.com is the ultimate resource calendar for scheduling.

What is resource scheduling?

Resource scheduling is the process of assigning resources to projects in order to work effectively and efficiently. This refers to people (employees or contractors), facilities, equipment, and more.

The goal of resource scheduling is to create a cohesive plan that allows you to see your resources on a timeline to make sure everything and everyone is on the same page to get a project done on time.

On the simplest level think of scheduling a kickoff meeting for a new assignment. Once schedules have been synced, someone needs to make sure there is a place for the meeting to take place. Scheduling both the people and the room are integral to making the meeting happen. Of course, resource scheduling only gets more intricate and complicated from here.

Why is resource scheduling critical in resource management?

To put it simply: to avoid chaos.

To map it out further: to make sure that teams are aligned and that projects move forward as anticipated with minimal hiccups along the way. Resource planning is important for organizations of any size, but as an organization grows, its importance grows. This is why using appropriate software, such as monday.com, is critical for staying on top of things and at all times.

The benefits of resource scheduling

Resource scheduling boasts a wide range of benefits in project management. Let’s look at a few of them:

1. Meet your deadlines

We’ve all been there. A deadline is approaching and it’s unclear if the team responsible is going to be able to deliver on time. Resource scheduling helps teams avoid exactly this issue. By having a set plan, and making sure the correct people, facilities, and equipment are available, meeting deadlines becomes much easier and more achievable.

2. Be prepared when things go wrong/change

No matter how well you manage a project, things are bound to change or go wrong at some point. This happens for a myriad of reasons including a sick team member, a broken piece of equipment, unexpected weather disturbing travel, and more. These changes are less overwhelming when there’s a plan in place to tackle them when they come up. Resource scheduling lets you see what and who is available at the click of a button to solve the issue.

3. Save time and money

Being efficient and well-planned saves any organization both time and money. Resource scheduling allows project managers to solve problems quickly and also gives them the ability to change the scope of projects and tackle new projects with ease. At the end of the day, this is a money, and a time, saver.

4. Track data in real-time

Resource scheduling helps teams understand resource consumption in real time, giving them access to valuable data and analysis. This is important for tracking projects on a micro level, giving managers the option to anticipate delays or issues and therefore re-allocate resources , and make informed decisions along the entire project pipeline.

5. Maintain a healthy work environment

No one wants an overworked and burnt-out team. Resource scheduling gives both management and team members an overview of capacity, total projects scheduled, and proposed timelines so that everyone knows what to expect.

Using a resource calendar

 A resource calendar is an important tool in resource scheduling. It aggregates all the information about the people, equipment, and facilities of your organization or a team, and puts it together in one place.  This helps management allocate resources appropriately, as well as grant vacation days, understand how to deal with sicknesses, and more.

A resource calendar typically includes team member information, schedules, equipment and tools, and workloads. It helps managers and team members to get a quick glimpse into what is going on in terms of timelines and availability.

Choosing the right software for resource scheduling

We are living in a world that is dynamic and fast changing. Businesses and teams need to be flexible and adaptable, often with little notice. Using dedicated software not only makes life much easier, but it’s also a time saver and in many cases enjoyable.

Resource scheduling will improve your work by keeping you organized and giving you the ability to see your resources in a variety of ways through reports, different views, and more. Choosing the right software for resource management depends on your organization’s needs, size, amount of resources, etc.

Let’s look at how monday.com can boost your resource scheduling.

How to use monday.com for resource scheduling

monday work management offers a wide variety of features that ensure you and your team are always on track and on the same page.

Here are some useful examples that can help you with resource scheduling:

• Dashboards : Show availability for team members or facilities, track deadlines across various projects, understand workloads, and more. Dashboards are a valuable resource for gaining insights across multiple projects and timelines in one centralized area.
• Timelines : Understand project deadlines visually, track vacation time, and plan projects moving forward.
• Workload and team planning view: Visualize and track hours for team members
• Assigning team members and resources according to availability – build a system to make sure that you aren’t assigning work to people (or resources) who are above capacity.

When using monday.com to build your resource schedule and calendar, we recommend starting with the resource management template . The template gives you a full view of your resources so that you can focus on your work and plan for the future.

Now’s the time to start resource scheduling with monday.com

Resource scheduling is an important tool for any team looking to be organized and efficient in the way they work. monday work management can help teams of all sizes schedule resources at just the click of a button.

How does resource scheduling reduce flexibility in managing projects?

Many project managers fear losing flexibility when implementing resource scheduling by assigning team members to specific tasks at particular times. However, this doesn’t have to mean a lack of flexibility, but rather a schedule that will reduce chaos and unanticipated changes.

Resource scheduling is part of resource management and is the process of allocating project resources according to an organization’s needs.

How does resource scheduling tie to project priority?

Resource scheduling requires prioritizing tasks and projects in order to allocate the correct people, equipment, and facilities to handle them.

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Add resources to your project

Resources are typically people included in your project plan, whether or not they are assigned to tasks. However, a resource could also include anything that is used to complete a project, including equipment and other materials (such as cement or web servers).

You can add several types of resources to your project.

Enterprise resources      An enterprise resource is a part of the list of resources for the whole organization; therefore, each of these resources can be shared across multiple projects. Typically, the list of enterprise resources is managed by an administrator, and each project manager adds these resources to their projects as needed.

Non-enterprise resources      A non-enterprise resource, or local resource , is not a part of the list of resources for the whole organization. No other project manager can use your non-enterprise resources in their projects.

Generic resources      Generic resources are used to specify the staffing requirements for a project, such as carpenters and developers, or a team of resources.

What do you want to do?

Add enterprise resources to your project (project professional only), add generic enterprise resources to your project (project professional only), add non-enterprise generic resources to your project (project professional only).

On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, choose Resource Sheet .

In the Resource Name field, type a job title, material, or generic resource name.

If you want to designate resource groups, then in the Group field for the resource name, type the name of the group.

Specify the resource type.

To specify that this resource is a work resource, in the Type field, select Work .

To specify that this resource is a material resource, in the Type field, select Material . In the Material Label field, type the label (for example, yards , tons , or boxes ) for the resource.

To specify that this resource is a cost resource, in the Type field, select Cost .

In the Max. Units field for the resource, type the number of total units that this resource is available for this project. The maximum units value specifies how much of this resource is available for this project — for example, part-time or multiples.

For example, if you have a resource who is available for your project two days a week, you can enter a maximum units value of 40% . You can use maximum units to specify multiple availability of a resource designation. For example, suppose you have a resource named Engineers , a single resource that represents three individual engineers on your team. You can enter the maximum units for Engineers as 300%. You can schedule all three engineers for full-time work at one time without the Engineers resource being overallocated.

You can enter maximum units as a percentage ( 50% , 100% , 300% ), or as a decimal ( 0.5 , 1 , 3 ).

To create a budget resource, select the resource, right-click the resource name, and then choose Information . Select the Budget check box.

You can add a work resource and associated information by using your MAPI email address book, from the Active Directory, or from Microsoft Project Server. On the Resource tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources , and then choose Build Team from Enterprise (Project Professional only), Active Directory , or Address Book .

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On the Resource tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources > Build Team from Enterprise .

In the Build Team from Enterprise dialog box, in the Existing filters box, select the filter that you want to apply. The filtered list of enterprise resources is displayed in the Enterprise Resource column. Any resources already assigned to your project team are listed in the Project Resource column.

To search for resources who are available to work a specific number of hours during a particular time range, select the Available to work check box. Enter the amount of time a resource needs to be available to work, and then select the date range by using the From and To boxes.

In the Enterprise Resource column, select the enterprise resource that you want to add to your project, and then choose Add . To select multiple resources, hold down CTRL while you select each resource.

To find enterprise resources that match the skills and other attributes of one of your team's existing resources, select the resource that you want to match under Project Resource , and then choose Match .

To replace an existing resource with an enterprise resource, in the Project Resource column, select the resource or generic resource that you want to replace. Under Enterprise Resource , select the new enterprise resource, and then choose Replace .

When you replace a resource, the replaced resource is not removed if they have completed any actual work. The replacement resource is assigned the remaining work.

To add a proposed resource to the project team, in the Book column, choose Proposed .

To view a graph of a selected resource's availability, choose Graphs .

Choose OK .

Adding an enterprise resource to your project allows you only to assign the resource to a task on your project. You cannot make changes to the attributes of enterprise resources, such as pay rates or availability.

If you want to add resources to the list of available enterprise resources, you must import the resources.

On the Resources tab, in the Insert group, choose Add Resources > Build Team from Enterprise .

If there are more than 1,000 enterprise resources, you can filter the list of resources by using enterprise outline codes. Outline codes are defined based upon the requirements of your organization.

Under Customize filters , select Generic in the Field Name column, select Equals in the Test column, and then type Yes in the Values column.

Choose Apply filter to apply the filter settings to the list of enterprise resources.

In the Enterprise Resource column, select the generic resource that you want to add to your project, and then choose Add . To select multiple resources, hold down CTRL while you select each resource.

In the Resource Name column, type a name for the generic resource, such as "carpenter."

Right-click the resource name, and choose Information . In the Resource Information dialog box, select the General tab, and then select the Generic check box

On the Custom Fields tab, under Custom Fields , enter values for any fields that are required for this generic resource.

Because these custom fields are unique to each organization, see your administrator for answers to any questions about their use.

Note:  You can add any generic resource to the list of enterprise resources. You might have to specify other attributes for the resource, such as calendars and skill sets, depending upon the requirements of your organization.

There are two ways to add resources to your projects:

Build Team      Using the Build Team feature, you can search for enterprise resources that have the required skills to complete the tasks in your project.

Resource plan      During project initiation, before a detailed project plan with tasks and assignments has been prepared, you can use a resource plan to represent the resource requirements for the project at a high level. This is helpful when you need to advise the resource managers and department managers of upcoming work, but you do not know the specific tasks or resources that will make up the project plan.

Note:  You can create and view resource plans only by using Project Web Access. The resource plans are not visible in Project Professional, and the plans do not limit the resource availability within Project.

Add resources to a project by using Build Team

Create a resource plan for a project proposal.

On the Quick Launch, choose Projects .

Select the row for the project that you want to build a team for, and then choose Build Team .

On the Build Team page, a list of resources on the left shows all the resources that you have permission to see within the resource breakdown structure code for your organization. The list on the right shows the resources that are already assigned in your project.

Select the resources on the left that you want to assign to the project, and then choose Add . Select the resource by selecting the check box next to the resource.

To create a list on the left that contains only those resources that have skills that match a resource on the right, select the resource on the right, and then choose Match .

Finding resources in this way is particularly helpful when you have generic resources in your project and you want to find real resources (people) with the same skills to replace the generic resources.

If you want to replace the resource on the right with the resource on the left, select both the resource on the left and the resource on the right, and then choose Replace . If the resource has actual work values recorded for tasks, that resource cannot be used in the project.

Under Booking Type , select Committed if you want to commit the resource to the project, or select Proposed if you do not yet have authorization to commit the resource to the project.

Tip:  To see a graph showing the availability of the selected resources before you add them to your schedule, select the resources on the left, and then choose Graph .

Choose Save Changes to add the new resources to your project.

You can also create a filter to see only a subset of resources on the Build Team page:

In the Filter list, select the filter that you want to apply.

Select a field in the Field Name list and a test in the Test list. In the Value list, select a value to test for, or set a range of values by typing two values separated by a comma (,).

If the filter contains more than one criterion row, select an operator in the And/Or column to start a new row.

To test whether the filter will return valid results before you apply it to your resources, choose Validate Filters .

Choose OK to apply the filter to the list of resources.

Note:  Project managers may not be able to view and assign all resources in their organization. See your server administrator if you need permission to build a team.

On the Quick Launch, under Projects , choose Proposals and Activities .

Select the project for which you want to create a resource plan, and then choose Resource Plan .

In the Date range and Units boxes, type a date range and the time units to display in the timephased part of the resource plan table.

In the Display Units box, indicate whether you want the values in the resource table to show hours, days, or FTEs (full-time equivalents).

To determine how the summary resource assignments are presented in the reports that you can generate from Project Web Access, in the Calculate resource utilization from section, select one of the following:

Project plan      If you want to calculate resource availability from all assignments within the project, but not from the project's resource plan, select this option.

Resource plan      If you want to calculate resource availability by using resource information in the resource plan, select this option.

Project Plan until      If you want to calculate resource availability from all assignments within the project until a specific date, select this option. The resource utilization from the resource plan will be used to determine the resource availability after the specified date.

Select the Show total work check box to show the total hours in the resource plan table instead of timephased values.

In the Items per page box, type the maximum number of lines to display in the resource plan table.

Choose Apply to apply the setting to the resource grid without saving.

Choose Publish to publish the plan so that it appears as a project proposal within the Project Center.

If you want to save the proposal without publishing it, choose Save . Other team members will not be able to see the proposal in the Project Center.

Why can't I perform some actions in Project Web Access?

Depending on the permissions settings you used to log on to Project Web Access, you may not be able to see or use certain features. Also, what you see on some pages may differ from what is documented if your server administrator customized Project Web Access and did not customize the Help to match.

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Resource Requirements in Project Management: A Quick Guide

When a project is planned, a set of steps are outlined to deliver a product or service. Resource requirements need to be identified and allocated for those steps to be executed. Think of resource requirements as the fuel that drives all project activities.

Once one understands what resource requirements are in project management, next there is estimating what those resources will be and managing them. To help with this process, we’ll define resource requirements and link to a free resource plan template.

What Are Resource Requirements in Project Management?

Resources are anything you need to complete a project including teams, equipment, raw materials and so on. These are called the resource requirements. Being able to know ahead of initiating the project which resources you’ll need is essential.

Resource requirements in project management allow project managers to know what they’ll need to execute their tasks and deliver the project on time and within their budget. Knowing one’s resource requirements will also help project managers to get the most out of their resources.

This can be done more effectively with project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that allocates and schedules project resources through multiple views. Managers can use our robust Gantt charts to schedule resources and their costs. The sheet view gives you a customizable grid to track individual project resources or a portfolio of projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

How to Estimate & Manage Project Resource Requirements

Resource requirements differ from project to project, of course, but also on how productive your team can be and even project switching, which is as team members pass tasks to one another. There’s also the feedback loop as comments or changes come from stakeholders, clients, etc. That’s a lot of variables. The following steps will help you narrow the forecast to be as accurate as possible.

1. Define Your Project Scope

The first step is to understand the scope of your project. That is knowing the project’s goals, deadlines and deliverables. There are many ways to determine the scope of a project. Using the project teams to mine their knowledge of the work and historical data can also play a role in estimating the project scope. More time-consuming, but accurate, is a work breakdown structure, or a hierarchical tree diagram that helps you to identify the project deliverables and tasks.

2. Write a Scope of Work

The scope of work is a project document that defines all the work that’s done over the project’s life cycle. That includes the project deliverables, timeline, milestones, how reporting will be done and more. The importance of this step goes beyond estimating your project resource requirements and helps manage them to avoid scope creep, such as adding tasks to the project during its execution. A scope of work document will help you have a more accurate idea of the project and, in so doing, its resource requirements.

3. Make a Resource Breakdown Structure

Just as you use a work breakdown structure to identify deliverables, a resource breakdown structure can help you identify the project resource requirements. It’ll help you to identify resource types, such as people and tangible and intangible assets before the start of the project. This will not only help estimate your resource requirements but also help with scheduling and managing them, such as resource allocation.

4. Estimate the Costs Related to Your Project Resources

Resources aren’t just team members, raw materials, equipment and so forth. It’s also money. One must consider costs when estimating and managing project resource requirements. This means you must forecast the cost for each resource that will be used in your project. This will also inform your budget. Accurately forecasting the related costs for your project resources helps to save money without negatively affecting the project quality of your deliverables.

5. Create a Resource Schedule

Identify resource requirements for the project and allocate them on a timeline to create a resource schedule . To do this, you’ll need to know the availability of your team members and the start and end dates of their assigned tasks. This will make your project more efficient and save money by having the right resources allocated at the right time.

6. Create a Resource Management Plan

The next step is to develop a resource management plan that details the acquisition, development, usage, management, control and release of the project resources. This will provide a guide or roadmap for the project manager and project team to allocate, manage and control resources needed to complete the project as efficiently as possible.

7. Use Resource Tracking Tools

Anyone who’s made a resource management plan knows that there will be changes during execution. Therefore, a project manager must use resource-tracking tools to monitor and control resource requirements. Whatever resource tracking tool you use should provide a clear view of where and how those resources are being used. This will enhance the resource management plan and allocation of those resources as you can adjust to respond to changes in your project.

Types of Resource Requirements in Project Management

We’ve mentioned resource requirements and have briefly written about what project resources are, but to better understand them and their place in project management it’s important to define what we’ve been talking about. Below we list the main categories that make up resource requirements in project management and define each with examples.

• Labor: These are the people who work on the project’s production and deliver its goods and services. They can be part-time or full-time employees and anyone on the project team with the various skills required to deliver the project.
• Materials: This is what’s used to assemble the product or in the creation of whatever deliverables are being made in the project. Included in this category are supplies and other consumable items, such as wood, metal, glue, etc.
• Equipment: Sometimes bunched together with materials in defining resource requirements, equipment is what machinery is used to complete the project on schedule . This can be tools or software and heavy machinery.
• Property, Land or Infrastructure: This is another category that some fold into equipment, but deserves its distinct definition. Here we’re talking about the place where the work is happening or the underlying framework of features of a system or organization. That might be the job site on a construction project or roadways, sewers, railways and powerlines.
• Cash/Funding: Lastly, are the financial resources that pay for the project. This includes the budget, funding sources and cost allocations.

Resource Requirements vs. Resource Constraints

Resource requirements, as noted above, are the people, materials and equipment necessary to complete the project. Resource constraints are factors that can limit the supply of those resources to the project. Therefore, resource requirements are what you want to complete the project and resource constraints are anything that might prevent that from happening.

Resource constraints are a kind of risk associated with the resources you have allocated to the project. It’s something you’ll have to factor in as you create your resource requirements plan. Some examples of a resource constraint include inadequate financial capital, unavailability of needed resources and a new deadline for completion of the project due to a request from the client.

Resource Plan Template

Identifying your resource requirements will inform your resource plan , which then lists and organizes those resources over the life cycle of your project. It also helps one determine the amount of resources and their cost.

Use our free resource plan template for Excel to schedule your resources. With it, you can list all your human resources, which department they work in, their total effort, rate and the cost of that resource for your project. There’s even a weekly calendar to schedule them.

More Free Resource Requirements Management Templates

The free resource plan template is only one of over 100 free project management templates for Excel and Word that you can download right now. They cover every aspect of managing a project across several industries. Here are a few that relate to resource requirements.

Work Breakdown Structure Template

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is essential in identifying all your resource requirements. Our free work breakdown structure template for Excel has two sheets. One is a WBS list that’s broken down into phases of the projects and the deliverables due, the other is a WBS tree diagram that visually shows the breakdown of the project deliverables from top to bottom.

Scope of Work Template

A scope of work document is also important when determining the resource requirements for a project. It includes deliverables, but also what’s in and out of scope for the project, a timeline, milestone and project costs.

Project Estimate Template

Another part of resource requirements is estimating their cost to the project. Our free project estimate template for Excel will help you make a more accurate forecast of those costs. With this free template, you can estimate labor costs, but also materials, for each phase in your project.

ProjectManager Helps You Manage Project Resource Requirements

While all of our free resource requirement templates can help you identify and plan your project resources, they’re not an efficient tool to manage and track them throughout the life cycle of your project. Templates are static documents that must be manually updated and are not great for collaboration. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that helps you track and allocate resources in real time.

Track Resource Utilization With Real-Time Dashboards

If you’re not monitoring your project resource requirements throughout the project, you’re in danger of going over budget or not having the resources you need when you need to allocate them. To optimize resource utilization, use our real-time dashboards , which track your costs, time, workload and more so you can catch issues and respond to them quickly to stay on schedule and keep to your budget.

Use Workload Charts to Allocate Resources Effectively

Teams are a project’s most valuable resource. Without a project team, no amount of raw materials, equipment, etc., will deliver your project. The ability to keep teams productive without eroding morale is critical to a successful project. First, you can set your team’s availability, such as vacation time, PTO and even global holidays for remote workers, which makes it easier to assign them to tasks. Then toggle over to the color-coded workload chart and balance their workload to keep them working at capacity.

Related Resource Management Content

Resource management is a topic much bigger than just resource requirements. If you’re interested in learning more about resources as they relate to project management our site is an online hub for that and much more. We publish weekly blogs, tutorial videos and, of course, free templates. Here are some of the pieces we’ve published on resource management.

• What Is Resource Optimization? Techniques & Best Practices
• Best Resource Management Software: Free & Paid Options Ranked
• 5 Must-Have Resource Management Tools
• Identifying and Overcoming Resource Constraints
• Resource Forecasting in Project Management: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams in the office, out in the field and anywhere in between. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who are using our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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How To Plan Resources For Multiple Projects: 6 Expert Tips

When your org is working on multiple projects at the same time, staffing the right people on the right work & completing everything on time becomes harder. Here's how to set priorities, keep a close eye on capacity, and find the right software to help you plan efficiently.

Planning resources for multiple projects running simultaneously (or with some overlap) is a challenge for both project managers and organizations. PMs need to ensure that each project is appropriately resourced and that if resources are on multiple projects, they aren’t overbooked or underutilized.

If you’re new to juggling multiple projects and want to ensure you’re resourcing them appropriately, you’re in the right place.

6 Tips To Plan Resources For Multiple Projects

Here’s a few expert tips for planning resources on multiple projects.

1. Use Resourcing Software

During the planning process, using resource planning software to lay out all project schedules can be helpful. When you enter all project details (like tasks and their durations) into the software, you can generate a report showing how much time each team member has booked on project work vs. open for other projects.

Having this in a single report or dashboard can help you see if you need to conduct additional resource management , reschedule deliverables, or bring on a freelancer or resource from another team to help with load balancing.

When setting capacity in your software, consider things like team or agency-related meetings, breaks, sick days, or PTO, as well as any workers with nontraditional schedules, to get the most accurate information from your software.

Another bonus of using resourcing software is that it can help you forecast . Whoever is in charge of booking new projects can see any gaps in the schedule or need periods and hopefully fill them before they come up in the schedule—maximizing efficiency and billable time.

Here's a shortlist of the best resource management tools on the market:

Best Resource Management Software

The best tools to help you optimize the use of project resources.

• 1. Kantata — Best for real-time resource utilization
• 2. monday.com — Best for simple workload and capacity planning
• 3. Scoro — Best for forecasting team utilization
• 4. Parallax — Best for marketing agencies & software development firms
• 5. Runn — Best for real-time project tracking
• 6. Float — Best for simple project scheduling
• 7. Wrike — Best resource management software for scalability
• 8. Saviom — Best for enterprise resource management
• 9. Resource Guru — Best for hassle-free resource booking
• 10. Productive — Best for powerful reporting features

2. Prioritize Projects

When managing multiple projects , it’s critical to your success (and sanity) that you prioritize. Different projects come with different results, and they can’t all be the most important project for each team member or resource. Having a priority order can help you better manage project resource traffic jams.

For example, a year-long seven-figure project in a digital agency may take priority over a one-month ad-hoc project. If a resource is double booked, you should have them work on the year-long project and see if someone else (or a contractor) can take on the tasks for the smaller project. If the answer is no, it’s worth seeing if the deadline for the smaller project can be changed.

Note : The time to have this conversation is well before the deadline. Not a day or two before, or worse, the day the deliverable is due.

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3. Monitor Resource Utilization

Project resource planning and management is not a one-time activity. You need to keep up with it in real time to ensure that projects are moving along as anticipated. And if you’ve managed multiple projects, you know this is rarely the case.

Sometimes, things happen. For example, the client on project A needs an extra week to review and approve the designs. The sponsor for Project B wants another round of concepts. The designer for Project C got the flu, and the web developer on Project B had an emergency medical procedure this week.

If this scenario had you nodding furiously (or dreading managing multiple projects), you understand why you need to monitor these changes and update your resource management software as things evolve.

You may also want to try laying out a few scenarios to ensure all projects are covered and moving along as smoothly as they can as the timelines evolve.

4. Keep An Eye Out For Scope Creep

Similar to the way schedules can evolve, so can project scope . When managing multiple projects, stakeholders are likely to ask for additional revisions, new features, or, worse, changes to the direction of the entire project. These changes to scope can also change project schedules and necessary resources.

For example, if a stakeholder decides to add some additional website pages or creative assets at the end of the design phase, that could be a bigger issue than extending the schedule and adding hours.

Your designer might be booked on another project, and having them hang back to work on these additional assets will jeopardize that project’s timeline. This is especially important if your designer brings specialized design skills to your project and can’t be interchanged with another designer on your team or company.

To resolve the scheduling conflict, you will need to get creative. Consider completing the additional design work later in the timeline, telling the stakeholder you can’t accommodate the request, or bringing on another designer to provide additional support.

Another way to combat this issue is to anticipate it and ask proactively at the kickoff if stakeholders see additional needs not captured in the project plan . Even if the additional scope (read: scope creep ) isn’t identified precisely, at least everyone is thinking about it and being mindful.

5. Plan Ahead For Busy Times

Ok, this one might seem like an obvious tip. But instead of focusing on the fact that you need to plan ahead for those busy periods, let’s focus on how you might go about actually doing that. In project management, we all know some version of the quote, “When man plans, God laughs,” but this is more about controlling what we can and having some backup plans.

If you’re resourcing multiple projects (as you would in a digital agency or similar environment), you should be looking at resources both in the short term and long term.

Knowing that you’re going to be really busy either seasonally (leading up to Black Friday, for example) or temporarily (you have three big projects kicking off in a specific time period), you can start planning for this early. This might look like adding additional staff, adding padding to timelines, or blacking out that period so that additional work can’t be scheduled.

If a busy period pops up in the short term, and you can’t be proactive, think about burnout prevention. Overallocation of resources is a recipe for burnout , and you want to work with your project team and your leadership team to devise ways to prevent this from happening.

If you see people maxing out their hours on one project or working a lot of (approved) overtime to meet project milestones or deadlines, consider offering recharge time to allow for a much-needed break.

6. Keep Monitoring Project Progress

In addition to checking in with your resources, make sure you have an eye on the progress of all projects that are in process, as well as any new projects that may be in the pipeline.

Delays anywhere in the process can lead to additional bottlenecks or teams that have gaps in their schedules. Neither is ideal when trying to manage a number of work streams that may converge.

If you see a project in your portfolio is moving away from the planned schedule for any reason, it's always smart to be proactive and seek to understand what may happen to the overall resource allocation based on the way the project is progressing (or stalling out).

Tools For Planning Resources

Here are some different types of software that are useful in planning resources:

• Resource management software : There are so many great choices for resource management software on the market today. Choosing the right one for your needs will depend on the size of your team, the type of projects you manage, and your budget.
• Gantt charts : Plotting project schedules in a series of Gantt charts can help you understand where your busy periods are and see if there is open time in someone’s schedule you can fill. They provide a nice visual and can be color coded for easy reference.
• Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets : If you have smaller teams and less complex projects, you can use spreadsheets to manage your resources. Also, if your project management software isn’t great for resource management, and you don’t want to add another tool to your tech stack, a trusty Excel sheet can get you the information you need in a fairly user-friendly way. The main drawback here is that it can be more complicated to show dependencies, and there isn’t the same level of functionality to automatically show issues that you’d find in software designed specifically for project resource management.

Common Challenges With Planning Resources For Multiple Projects

If you’ve managed a project, you know resource management isn’t the easiest. And, when you add multiple projects and a larger resource pool to the mix, things can get even more challenging. 

Let’s look at some of the most common challenges of planning resources for multiple projects and some ways to overcome them.

Ensuring the right people are available for the right projects

When planning multiple projects, it can be challenging to ensure the right people are available at the right time for the right project. 

Lay out all of the project schedules as early as possible when developing your staffing plan. The goal is to find a way to keep the team’s utilization as consistent and full as possible without either overwhelming a team member or having anyone sit idle.

Resource leveling when you are overloaded

If you find that you have projects underway and need to do some resource leveling or load balancing during your projects, it can be especially challenging to ensure all projects have their needs met with the right resources if certain people are overbooked.

You can start by using your resource planning tool to level out the schedules and then look to see where the gaps are. If you can’t fill in the gaps with the perfect resource, you want to look for the next best option. This could include:

• Having the ideal person oversee a newer or more junior team member to get the work done on the same schedule
• Moving some deadlines or adjusting the project plan when possible
• Bringing in some temporary help to relieve the pressure on your core team

Using good decision-making skills and teamwork

As the project manager, your job is to advocate for the needs of your project team, but there may come a time when you need to make the best decision possible because of timing, budget, or resource constraints.

One of the hardest parts of this is trusting your gut and making the best decision possible with the information you have available.

If you and your team hold regular retrospectives, whether every sprint or at the end of the project, you will have some time to reflect on the decisions you’ve made and talk about how you might want to handle similar situations moving forward.

Remember, the more you do this, the better at this you will get.

Another challenge that comes up a lot is working together as a team. While you might not always agree with everyone on the project team and how they want to approach something, it’s important that you all work together to maximize your efficiency and complete projects together.

Managing conflicting priorities

Another really common challenge when planning resources for multiple projects is managing conflicting priorities. Each project’s stakeholders are going to claim that their project is the highest priority and needs to be done first.

And while there is a kernel of truth in that (for them), your role is to look at the bigger picture and prioritize the work based on how it impacts your team and organization.

Now, this is easier said than done. When the VP of operations is in your face demanding their initiative be moved to the top of the pile, it's not going to be fun. You'll need to push back and (calmly) explain why their project is a nice to have and someone else’s is mission critical.

Managing stress for both the project manager and the project team

Multiple projects and multiple resources can come with a lot of stress. While managing stress as a project manager can be challenging in general, adding more projects and more resources ups the ante.

Finding healthy ways to manage stress for both yourself and your team is really important. If you know you’re heading into a busy and high-pressure season, remember to take breaks, schedule walks, eat healthy, and consider peppering in some planned PTO to recharge.

If none of this feels possible, take a breath and try to find a way to work with your team to make it happen. And remember that perfect is the enemy of good, so keep doing your best.

If your organization has a good human resource person, check in with them to find out what resources might be available to you and your team.

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