task of resource management

• Contact Sales
• Download App
• Project planning |
• What is resource management? Your guide ...

What is resource management? Your 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 most leaders experience. In a world where organizations are moving fast—and are often virtual—sometimes employee workload becomes an oversight. 

Developing a resource management plan gives you ongoing visibility into the workloads of your team. It allows you to balance all your resources effectively and to see the full picture on how your team will achieve its goals.

What is resource management?

Resource management is the process of planning and scheduling your team’s resources and activities. 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?

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. 

Your plan will guide you, the de facto project manager or project administrator, by giving a holistic view of all of a project’s moving pieces: budget, staffing and workload requirements, tech stack limitations—you name it. 

You can 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.

Why creating a resource management plan is important

Oftentimes we don’t realize our team members are drowning in projects until it’s too late. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 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 work at a sustainable rate and with higher quality. Better yet, by knowing they have the capacity to do their best work, your team will feel satisfied at the end of the day.

Should I create a resource management plan for my project?

The short answer: 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. 

Benefits of resource management

If you’re not already convinced that resource management is critical to your team’s success, let’s dig a little deeper. Check out these advantages you don’t want to miss out on:

1. See the whole picture

Maintaining a resource management plan from a central source of truth gives you an insider’s look. When you have a pulse on what your team is working on, you can best assign resources for new projects that pop up. You can make changes to your resource management plan to prevent overwork and maximize your team’s efficacy. 

This high-level overview helps you connect the dots from resource to individual task to project timeline and decide if someone’s workload is too heavy or light. This is your opportunity to spot potential problems upfront.

2. Distribute work appropriately

You likely know the strengths and weaknesses of each of your team members. As you’re assigning resources, it’s important to keep in mind who will be the most successful with each task or activity. 

Regularly check in with your team and allow them to be part of the decision-making process—they’ll feel empowered from the start. Be sure you’re using their time effectively by monitoring who’s overloaded on other projects and who has extra bandwidth.

3. Keep your team on the same page

Being transparent with your team ensures that no one is in the dark. This is important because when everyone knows who’s doing what and by when, confusion decreases and team members have clarity around their responsibilities. They can see how their part of the project fits into the overall vision for the team or the company. And when a team works well together, projects automatically run more smoothly—plus they’re more fun to work on!

4. Set realistic goals

Project resource management gives you an opportunity to map out what you can realistically get done, and by when. Having everything spelled out, including all necessary resources, helps you pinpoint any dependencies and make adjustments if need be. 

Sometimes, that means resource leveling your team: readjusting due dates and priorities to a more reasonable deadline. Though no one likes missing due dates, proactively resource leveling can prevent your team from missing a deadline altogether.

5. Improve future planning

If you’re maintaining a pulse on what each of your direct reports is working on and assigning available resources based on that knowledge, you’ll get better at it over time. 

As you become more familiar with the resource management process, you’ll be better able to estimate and forecast upcoming bandwidth. This can also help you make a case for more budget or people.

5 steps to create a resource management plan

You can create a resource management plan in any tool—in fact, you could theoretically even use a spreadsheet to maintain insight into resource utilization and availability. 

The best resource management tool is one that acts as your team’s central source of truth. With Asana for resource management, you have easy insight into what everyone on your team is working on, what resources are available, and how to prevent team burnout. 

1. Define the project goals

To best assign your team’s resources, you need to know the project's goals and objectives . Ask the following questions:

Is this a simple deliverable, or a more involved campaign? 

What metrics will be used to measure the success of the project?

Gaining clarity on what each project entails will make it easier to know what resources you need and how to assign them. 

2. Align on project scope

What is the scope of the project ? If possible, meet with project stakeholders to align on how much time and resources you should be dedicating to this initiative. That will give you the best sense of the project plan and help you decide what resources are best suited for the job. 

At this stage in the process, it can be helpful to practice resource smoothing—which means making sure you won’t have any resource shortages during the project scope and timeline.

3. Identify the types of resources you’ll need

Get detailed about what your project requirements are so you can identify the proper resources. As we mentioned earlier, resources in your resource management plan can include:

Team equipment

Employee bandwidth 

Part of creating a resource management plan is determining what types of resources you’ll need, so you can then identify what resources you have available.

4. Identify available resources

This is the meat and potatoes of resource management. During this stage, you should identify who should be staffed on this project. Depending on the project scope, you might have to resource level and deprioritize other work to avoid putting too much on your team’s plate.

But as we’ve learned, employee bandwidth is not the only resource you’re managing. The same due diligence is necessary with your other resources: Find out if the software you currently use is up to date and works for the project your team has to complete. If not, do you have enough budget to upgrade to a better one?

Check each needed resource you identified earlier and see what you have already available to set your team up for success.

5. Check in on project progress

To be a great resource manager, check in with your team frequently during the project’s life cycle. How are they doing? Are they feeling overworked, or, conversely, is the project overstaffed? Clarifying that you support them and—most importantly—understand what’s on their plate is a great way to continuously support your team.

10 resource management best practices

You’re on your way to creating a resource management plan. But do you want to become a resource management master? Whether you're a program manager or a project team lead, try these 10 tips to get started.

1. Measure resources realistically

Know how much time it takes for each employee to get things done so you don’t run into rescheduling issues later. Find out if you can provide the right software and equipment your team needs to successfully complete the project. Talk to your team to inquire about their needs and check on completed project reports to see what kind of resources other teams used.

2. Set start and end dates 

Set start and end dates so you get a realistic time frame for how long each task will take. By making sure you set realistic expectations, you’ll be able to provide an accurate timeline for the entire project.

3. Know your employees’ skill sets 

Understanding who is great at what helps determine the best resource for each task. If you don’t already know, ask your team members what their strengths are. If someone is great at organizing, let them handle project schedules. If someone has great technical expertise, assign them the more technical tasks—team members who are working on tasks that their adapt in will not only get the job done quicker but also feel more accomplished doing it.

4. Prioritize work 

Set clear project goals and communicate them with your team. These goals should be transparent and accessible so your teammates can check on them as the project progresses. With these goals in mind, your team will find it much easier to priroitize their work and drive the project forward. In short: build your timeline around your top priority tasks and determine which resources will get you there.

5. Help your team increase their utilization rate 

Utilization rate is the amount of time your project team spends on actionable, strategic, or billable work. On average, employees spend 60% of their time on “work about work,” like chasing approvals or searching for documents. Reducing work about work is the best way to empower your team to get their best work done and increase their utilization rate.

6. Adjust for efficiency as you go 

Project management, in general, is an ongoing effort. Tasks and timelines may change as challenges arise. Don’t be afraid to move resources around as necessary to be as efficient as possible .

7. Keep some time slots open 

While resource management planning is critical to do from the beginning, you can’t plan for everything. Keep time slots available for new work that might come up and be flexible.

8. Pick the resource management style that fits your team 

You know your team better than anyone. Use your knowledge to determine the best resource management methodology , such as workload by hours, points, or task count.

9. Check in on your team 

Make sure you have a real-time pulse of your team’s workload and that each team member feels their work volume is fair and achievable. This can help you with future planning and improve how you assign resources.

10. Connect your resource management plan to your operational plan

Operational planning is the process of creating a detailed map of exactly what actions your team will take on a weekly, or sometimes even daily, basis. Build your resource management plan into your operational plan in order to effectively manage your team's time.

Resource management advice from four team leads

What’s better than reading a guide on how to assign resources in project management? How about hearing from four team leads—with different backgrounds and challenges—who are immersed in the practice every day? Read on as they weigh in on how to tackle a resource management plan and give real examples. Meet Jenny, Ariel, Eric, and Reigan.

What is the biggest challenge you face when it comes to resource management and what’s your solution?

A big challenge I face when it comes to resource management involves getting a high-level view of my team’s workload. I need to have an accurate look at every project coming down the pipeline.

I tackle this by first looking at the roadmap of upcoming product launches and campaigns and then figuring out staffing needs at the project level versus individual deliverables. I manage everything in a work management tool where I have a Portfolio of all the projects my team is working on each quarter. For smaller copy projects or ad hoc work, I’ve set up a process in the same work management tool for people to request copy support. Now, I can easily manage new requests that come in and identify what the needs, deadlines, and priorities are.

When it comes to staffing projects or assigning resources, there’s both an art and a science to it. I try to make sure that someone’s available bandwidth matches the scope of work assigned and I also think about assigning projects that align with individual skills and career goals.

What are your top three tips for building and managing a resource management plan?

Be proactive about finding out what projects are in the pipeline. Most of my team’s projects are kicked off by other teams, so it’s important to reach out to cross-functional partners and get a holistic view of what’s coming up.

Make sure each team member has at least one big project (e.g., a marketing campaign) on their plate and round out their workload with week-to-week and day-to-day tasks. This minimizes context switching while giving some variety.

Check in frequently with your team so you know each person’s bandwidth and make adjustments as you go. If something unexpected comes up, keep the lines of communication open to ensure that your resource plans stay on track.

The biggest challenge I face when it comes to resource management is having an accurate view of what my team is working on, what our bandwidth is, and what the status of projects are. There’s a lot of nuance that comes with this because each individual contributor has their own pace and strengths. I need to identify who is the best person to assign to each project.

It’s key to constantly improve communication with team members. I make sure everyone is on the same page by having regular check-ins, stand-up meetings, and face-to-face discussions. I also try to get a high-level overview of everyone’s tasks so I can better approach conversations. By building project timelines for the team’s production process, I get a clear view of who’s in charge and what their next steps are.

Get cross-functional stakeholder input on your workback schedule. By doing so, you can ensure your team is aligned and set realistic expectations and timing upfront.

Follow progress in your work management tool (in particular, your Timeline ). See what work is delegated to your team members and use your timeline to determine if you can help with any roadblocks.

Understand how your team uses your work management tool . Some team members might look at the bigger picture, while others will focus on viewing one task. Adapt your working style to accommodate how your team operates.

One challenge is that my team does work in parallel. I need to ask myself, “How can I maximize value with my engineering team ?” I have to focus on achieving a balance based on our goals and the risk of the work.

I have team meetings and use the time to collectively lay out everyone’s work in a list. The list helps us see what we’re doing in the next few weeks and understand how team members feel about the work. Then we take what we’ve learned and apply it in our work management tool. We make it a priority to clearly document everything in one spot.

Everything is tracked in our work management tool, including out-of-office notifications. We can always see what resources will be available. This gives me the opportunity to be strategic about timing. We’ll avoid starting a big project right before the weekend or when multiple people are out of the office.

If you have a project or task that is risky, immediately write it down. By keeping these types of notes, you are protecting yourself and avoiding any worst-case scenarios or risks.

Be flexible. Don’t think about your plan as a one-off task that you can simply check off your list. Always be learning, replanning, and recalibrating; optimize your resource management plan as you go.

Make team thinking a collaborative activity. Every person on your team should be encouraged to share their opinions, make recommendations, and let others know when their bandwidth is tight. Resource management is not one person’s job; it’s a group effort.

A big challenge I face when it comes to resource management is getting a clear understanding of a request and knowing who on my team is the most suited to take on the work, given their current bandwidth. I often ask myself, “Who is the most equipped and knowledgeable to take on this specific request?”

I have my team map out their top five priorities every month so I can evaluate their bandwidth. It’s all about identifying which projects make the most sense for each person. For example, a project involving an existing initiative might be a better fit for a new hire, whereas a more complex project might make more sense for a longer-tenured employee.

Recently, I created a project in my work management tool that gives me an editorial calendar view. I can see all the email campaigns my team is working on and get a quick glance of when one is going out and who is responsible for it.

Streamline your work process. It can be overwhelming when multiple requests are thrown on your plate. Try simplifying your process by using digital Forms , especially if they integrate with your work management system.

Have a meeting with your team on a weekly basis. Understand how your team members are feeling about their current bandwidth and get a clear understanding of how much workload they feel comfortable with.

Manage priorities. Look at your team’s top five monthly priorities to see what type of work each person is focused on. Monitor your team’s priorities on a weekly basis to see if anything has changed and reprioritize if needed.

Ready to build a resource management plan?

Resource management should always be a part of your overall project work plan . While it can seem overwhelming at first, assigning the right resources at the right time will make work much easier as you move forward. Take it step by step and commit to using a work management tool. Your team will thank you!

Once your resource management plan is in place and you’ve assigned resources, always remember to identify and highlight employee wins. Celebrating your team’s success helps keep your employees engaged and productive. To use the same tool Jenny, Ariel, Eric, and Reigan are using, take a look at Asana and get work done faster.

Related resources

What is RAPID decision-making?

Stay on track with a project plan that actually works

What is an estimation method? 6 techniques for project planning

Value streams: Provide customers value with every step

• Contact sales

Start free trial

Resource Management: Process, Tools & Techniques

Businesses execute projects and to do so, they need to manage different types of resources through a process known as resource management.

What Is Resource Management?

Resource management is the process of planning, scheduling and allocating resources to complete a project. Usually, project managers oversee the resource management process, but there are other leaders who might take this responsibility. To do so, they need to use resource management tools and techniques such as project management software.

ProjectManager is a robust project management software with Gantt charts, real-time dashboards and other resource management tools to help you monitor your project resources. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Why Is Resource Management Important?

Resource management is an important process for many disciplines such as project management , portfolio management and business management. Here’s how it helps in each of those fields.

Resource Management In Project Management

Resource management is very important when managing projects. It’s important to identify your resource requirements during the initiation and planning phases of the project life cycle so you can estimate costs and create a project budget . Then it’s important to make sure you schedule the right resources at the right time so your project plan is completed on time.

Resource Management In Portfolio Management

Resource management is even more important for project portfolio management than it is for managing individual projects. The reason is program managers, portfolio managers and project management offices (PMOs) need to ensure they allocate resources strategically to manage multiple projects simultaneously. For example, they can minimize costs by using the same resources across projects.

Get your free

Resource Plan Template

Use this free Resource Plan Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Resource Management In Business Management

The way in which you manage your business resources greatly affects its ability to function and grow beyond project management. Managing resources effectively has a myriad of benefits for your business such as helping you cut down costs, streamlining your operations planning and maximizing your profits.

Types of Project Resources

Project resources can be simply defined as anything that’s needed to execute project tasks, including the people executing the work. Here are some examples of project resources.

• Raw materials
• Human resources
• Machinery and equipment
• Financial resources
• Information and data

Resource Management Process

As stated above, resource management is an ongoing process that starts during the project planning phase and continues until project closure. This is known as the resource management life cycle, which is made up of four stages that project managers should understand to properly manage project resources.

• Resource analysis: The process of gauging your current resource availability to determine what resources are missing for the execution of a project or action plan.
• Resource planning: A resource plan explains what your project resource requirements are and how they’ll be met. More importantly, it guides the team when it comes to resource management, so it should include information such as general guidelines, a description of your project resources, their quantities and when they’re needed.
• Resource scheduling: You then need to ensure that those resources are readily available. To do so, you’ll need to simply align your resource schedule with your overall project schedule and have a solid supply chain in place.
• Resource allocation: Resource allocation is an ongoing process that’s simply defined as picking the right resources at the right time to achieve project tasks. For example, there are critical tasks that need to be prioritized when creating the resource schedule.
• Resource tracking: You’ll need to keep track of the performance of your team. Use timesheets, workload charts and other resource management tools to track the work of your team members.

Most project managers use resource management software to help them as they move from one phase of the resource management process to the next.

Resource Management Techniques

Project managers implement the following resource management techniques to forecast, plan, allocate, level and optimize resources during the execution of a project.

1. Resource Forecasting

Project managers must do their best at estimating what resources are needed for a project and how those resource requirements fit with the organization’s current plans. To do this, you must define your project scope to identify all project tasks and their required resources.

2. Resource Allocation

Resource allocation consists in evaluating available resources, capacity, resource schedule and the tasks that need to be completed to find the team members with the most relevant skills and make sure they have all the project resources they need when they need them.

3. Resource Leveling

Resource leveling is the process of re-assigning work to a project team to solve overallocation or scheduling issues. By thoroughly understanding what your team members can offer, you can assign tasks based on their abilities to maximize resource efficiency.

4. Resource Utilization

Careful resource planning is equally as important as resource tracking. Project managers need to keep track of resource utilization to spot any resources that aren’t being used efficiently. Then they can simply reallocate those resources or make changes to the resource management plan.

5. Resource Smoothing

Resource smoothing simply consists in delaying non-critical tasks to complete a project on time with the available resources. This is done by using the slack or float on each of those tasks to delay them without affecting the critical path. By delaying non-critical tasks, you can move your resources for the completion of critical path tasks and circle back to the least important activities.

Now that we’ve learned about the different resource management phases and the techniques you can use, you’re ready to get started with resource management. This free resource plan is a good tool for beginners. It allows you to list your resources and keep track of their availability and costs.

However, our resource plan template needs to be manually updated and shared with the team. That’s time-consuming, which is why most project managers use resource management software to help streamline the process.

How ProjectManager Helps With Resource Management

Resource management was developed to manage the resources in your project, which requires visibility into resource availability, workload and more. ProjectManager is project management software that gives you real-time data to make more insightful decisions when managing resources.

Plan Resources With Interactive Gantt Charts

Resources and costs can be scheduled with tasks on our Gantt chart project view . Once you set a baseline, you can also consult the planned versus actual progress of your overall project to get a head’s up if there’s a problem with resources. The progress bar tells you the progress being made on a specific task according to the planned effort. If you’re not meeting your baseline, reallocate your resources to stay on track.

Manage Workload and Keep Teams Productive

Your team is your most valuable resource. You can set up your team’s availability, workdays, holidays and PTO regardless of where they work. Once they start working, you don’t want to burn them out or leave them idle. Our color-coded workload page lets you see at a glance whether your team members are overallocated or under-allocated. A balanced workload leads to a more productive and happy team—and happier teams are more productive.

Track Your Resources With Real-Time Dashboards and Reports

You’ve planned your resource management, but as you execute the project, you have to monitor those resources. If you don’t keep an eye on how you’re using resources, you risk going over budget or missing deadlines. Our real-time project dashboard automatically collects live data and displays it in colorful graphs that chart six project metrics. In one click, you can generate reports that go deeper into the workload, time, costs and much more. All reports can be filtered and shared with stakeholders as you see fit.

Our software helps you plan, manage and report on project resources. You can allocate and track resource costs, see your team’s availability to make assignments and monitor everything with dashboards that act as instant status reports. Get everything you need to manage resources all in one place.

Related Resource Management Content

• The Ultimate Guide to Resource Planning
• Resource Scheduling in Project Management
• What Is Resource Allocation? 12 Resource Allocation Tips
• What Is Resource Loading & Why Does It Matter
• 5 Must-Have Resource Management Tools

When you’re managing resources on a project, there are a lot of balls to keep in the air, and that process can get complicated and confusing. However, with the right online tool, you’re able to plan, monitor and report on your resources with great control and accuracy. ProjectManager is online project management software that gives you the tools you need to steer your project to successful completion. Try it for yourself.

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

• Online Degree Explore Bachelor’s & Master’s degrees
• MasterTrack™ Earn credit towards a Master’s degree
• University Certificates Advance your career with graduate-level learning
• Top Courses
• Join for Free

Resource Manager: What They Do, Earn, and How to Become One

Find out if resource management is a good fit for you by learning what resource managers do, their benefits, and how it compares to similar careers.

A resource manager is responsible for managing a company's resources, such as personnel, finances, and assets.

Careers in resource management are a popular choice with great benefits for those who are detail-oriented and have a knack for seeing the bigger picture. Resource managers are often able to use these skills to create safe, efficient, and happy work environments. 

In this article, you'll learn more about what resource management is, what sets it apart, and the steps you'll need to take to join the field. At the end, you'll explore cost-effective, flexible resources that can help you gain job-relevant skills today.

What is resource management?

Resource management involves managing a company's resources. This can include planning how and when a company uses its resources and overseeing the roll-out of resources used for a company's various project. Examples include:

Deciding how much money goes to each project

Determining how many staff members are necessary for specific tasks

Recruiting team members to fill skill gaps

Allocating the type of technology used in a project or program

The exact resources you manage will depend on the position, so it's important to look at the job description carefully to ensure it's the right fit for you.

What is a resource manager?  

Resource managers decide how to allocate an organization's resources to promote its short- and long-term success. This includes any resource needed to complete a task or project, including improving employee skill sets, funding, workplace tools, and more.

Resources managers are often involved in project coordination and development across multiple sectors, so building project management , communication , and organization skills can help you succeed in this position.

Duties and responsibilities

As a resource manager, your duties and responsibilities will vary greatly depending on where you work. While at a small company you'll likely manage resources across many different projects, at a large company you'll likely work in a specialized area.

Nonetheless, some typical responsibilities and duties for a resource manager may include:

Allocating employee time and company resources to projects

Ensuring the company has the resources needed for upcoming tasks

Managing employee workload and workflow

Ensuring adherence to company regulations

Overcoming resource shortages through creative planning 

Organizing current project resource flow and scheduling future resources

Collaborating with the human resources departments and project managers

Documenting resource use and planning

Resource manager salary and job outlook

Resource managers earn a higher than average salary and have a positive job outlook for the foreseeable future.

According to Glassdoor, resource managers earn an average annual base salary of $80,154 in the United States as of July 2023 [ 1 ]. This is much higher than the median average for all positions in the country, which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics pegged at $45,760 as of May 2021 [ 2 ].

The job outlook for resource managers is similarly positive. According to the US BLS, the number of job openings for human resources managers will grow by 7 percent between 2021 and 2031, resulting in approximately 16,300 new openings every year throughout the decade [ 2 ]. Grand View Research, meanwhile, expects the market size for for human resource management to grow at a compound annual rate of 12.7 percent between 2023 to 2030 [ 3 ].

These stats suggest that resource managers more generally should also see steady demand in the coming years.

Resource manager vs. human resources manager

A human resource manager is a type of resource manager with a specialization in people-oriented management. Human resources managers are in charge of tasks such as recruiting employees, determining salaries, training employees, and keeping track of employee performance. The main goal of a human resources manager is generally to keep the organization a safe, productive, and healthy place for the workers. 

On the other hand, a resource manager has a more general focus and typically looks at a range of resources across multiple projects. This may also involve human resources, such as employee time and skills, but resource managers will not specialize in this area. They’ll often collaborate with human resource managers when building a project team.

Read more: What Is a Human Resources Manager? | Your Guide

How to become a resource manager

Resource managers help organizations accomplish their goals by managing their resources. To become on yourself, consequently, you'll need to demonstrate that you have the training and experience required to work with budgets, manage teams, and communicate with diverse audiences on behalf of your employer. 

So, here's what you'll likely have to do to become a resource manager:

1. Get a bachelor’s degree.

Employers typically require at least a bachelor’s degree to become a resource manager. According to Zippia, 64.2 percent of resource managers have a bachelor’s degree, and just 15.7 percent have an associate degree [ 4 ]. A business management, project management, or economics degree can help demonstrate your relevant skills. Focusing on industry-specific skills like resource management and project planning can make you a competitive option during the hiring process. 

2. Gain work experience. 

There is a growing demand for resource managers. Getting entry-level experience in management can show that you’re passionate about the field and demonstrate your competitive skills. This can also help you find higher-earning positions that require more experience and demonstrated skills.

3. Build your skills.

As a resource manager, you need various technical and workplace skills to manage projects and teams efficiently.

Part of your job will likely involve anticipating obstacles and finding solutions, so it's essential to be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly with other employees. In addition to this, being able to organize the details of each project and how they fit together can help you do your job well.

Here are some of the technical and workplace skills you should consider honing to become a resource manager:

Basic computer skills

Knowledge of project management and resource planning software

Basic math abilities

Effective communication

Decision making

Detail oriented

Resource management might be a great career fit if these skills sound like ones that come naturally to you. Companies of all sizes rely on resource managers to help them sustain and grow. 

Get started with Coursera

Resource managers use their unique skill set to ensure that an organization's resources are managed effectively, efficiently, and responsibly. If you're interested in pursuing a career in resource management, consider taking a flexible, cost-effective course through Coursera today.

In the University of Minnesota's Human Resource Management: HR for People Managers Specialization , you'll develop strategies and skills for hiring, managing performance, and rewarding employees.

In Google's Project Management Professional Certificate , meanwhile, you'll learn job-relevant skills like creating risk management plans, creating budgets, and using project management software.

Article sources

Glassdoor. " How much does a Resource Manager make? https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/resource-manager-salary-SRCH_KO0,16.htm?clickSource=careerNav." Accessed July 11, 2023.

US BLS. " Occupational Outlook Handbook: Human Resources Manager , https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/human-resources-managers.htm#tab-1." Accessed July 11, 2023.

Grand View Research. “ Human Resource Management Market Size By Region and Segment Forecasts, 2022-2030 , https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/human-resource-management-hrm-market." Accessed July 11, 2023.

Zippia. “ Resource Manager Education Requirements ,   https://www.zippia.com/resource-manager-jobs/education/.” Accessed July 11, 2023.

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

Develop career skills and credentials to stand out

• Build in demand career skills with experts from leading companies and universities
• Choose from over 8000 courses, hands-on projects, and certificate programs
• Learn on your terms with flexible schedules and on-demand courses

10 Best Practices for Effective Resource Management

Wondering how to manage resources effectively here are 10 tips from experts to help you deliver projects successfully. .

Stella Inabo

• resource management

As more organizations look to improve their planning and forecasting, and employees increasingly try to protect their time, managers may be hard-pressed to answer the question: How do I plan resources effectively and efficiently? 

If you're in the same boat, read on! We've compiled a list of resource management best practices and tips from experts to help you:

• Plan projects successfully
• Allocate tasks based on capacity and suitability
• Handle time off
• Keep project costs balanced
• Get the most out of your team's time

What is effective resource management?

Effective resource management is planning, allocating, and tracking resources (like team members, budgets, office space, software, etc.) to successfully complete projects. 

Managing resources effectively is important because it helps you deliver projects on time while adopting a people-first approach and minimizing costs. 

How can you be a more effective resource manager? Start with these 10 tips.

1. determine your team’s capacity before planning projects  .

This might surprise you, but your team members don’t have a full eight hours to complete their daily project tasks. 

Consider all the other essential admin activities your team does for projects to succeed. According to Asana’s Anatomy of Work Report , workers lose 58% of their work week to “communicating about work, searching for information, switching between apps, managing shifting priorities, and chasing status updates.”

For this reason, resource planning based on your team’s perceived capacity is ineffective and doesn’t account for these time-consuming tasks. Michael Luchen, the director of product at Float, says a better approach is to find your team’s actual capacity and make project plans based on their availability. 

“It’s important to understand your organization’s baseline capacity when it comes to planning projects,” he explains. “Think of admin and management tasks they might have to do. For example, if the design lead has to do admin work for an hour or two a day and then meet with team members for another hour, that should be allocated on their schedule.” 

Use resource management software to determine your team’s real capacity and availability

Float shows your team’s capacity at a glance with a visual schedule. Add each person’s availability, including full or part-time hours, time off, and outside calendar events to paint a full picture of their time and capacity. You can see the number of scheduled vs. available hours for each person or across the whole team for precise project planning and forecasting.

2. Narrow your project focus to avoid context switching and reduce cognitive load

To avoid stretching your team thin and prevent the strain of context switching, Rachel Gertz, the CEO of Louder Than Ten , suggests working on a minimum number of tasks instead of multi-tasking. 

"If you can, always try to narrow your project focus to three (but no more than five) ... so that you don't burden your team's cognitive load," she says. "The less your team gets distracted, the greater their focus, efficiency, and satisfaction at work."

We usually think of context switching as pausing a specific task like writing code to take on a more mundane task like replying to an email, but sometimes it could mean switching between multiple projects. In her article " 5 Diagrams That Show How Context Switching Saps Your Productivity ," Ashley Faus describes the cognitive load of constant change:

"Think of trying to write a three-year strategy document and then immediately trying to copyedit a tweet. Or architect the infrastructure for a new system and then immediately find the missing semicolon that's causing a system to crash. Exhausting!"

Jumping between tasks can sap energy and reduce productivity, especially for knowledge workers. To eliminate the constant back and forth, Colin Ross, director of engineering at Float, recommends assigning team members to a primary task that is their main focus while providing "a sensible backup option when they need a break or have hit some sort of blocker in the primary task."

To take off the pressure, ensure that the backup task doesn't have a close deadline and is part of a longer-term initiative. 

"For example, a developer's primary focus might be some new product feature, but with a secondary focus of adding tests to our existing code base. This allows the developer to take occasional breaks from the main focus while still doing valuable work as their brain recharges and gets a break from the primary," says Ross.

3. Schedule work only for the amount of time team members are available

Imagine a scenario where one of your QA engineers has annual leave scheduled close to the launch of a new feature, and the activity's start date can't be moved.

What do you do? One option is to try to frontload their schedule before they leave. However, pushing as many tasks into the team member's available time could cause undue stress. It could also leave you with unfinished activities that threaten the completion of your project. 

Instead, it would be best if you planned for time off in your capacity planning to increase the chances of project success. 

"I believe in factoring time off into the capacity plan. If a team member has a two-week vacation in the middle of a six-week project, then I would work to ensure their scope of work fits into four weeks," says Luchen.

Of course, you'd have to know your team's availability ahead of time for this to be effective. You can use a tool like a Float to track custom work hours, time off, local public holidays, and even tentative time off for a complete view of availability. Managing time off in the same place you plan work reduces scheduling errors and ensures project plans stay on track. The shared visual schedule also increases transparency so everyone can see when a teammate's planning to take time off. 

Once you know how long they'll be unavailable, you can allocate tasks to another team member with availability and the right skills. A visual schedule like Float helps to reduce scheduling conflicts and overbooking, with a single source of truth of what everyone's working on and when. If changes need to be made to planned work, it's as easy as dragging and dropping a task to a teammate with more capacity.

Drag and drop tasks to reassign tasks to available team members

4. Consider the effect of schedule changes beforehand

You might have to change the project schedule when you don’t have enough time or people to complete your project. These changes often affect the project’s timeline or cost. 

Let’s say you move a deadline back, so a team member has enough time to finish a task. While it will allow more time to complete activities, some team members scheduled to work on dependent tasks may be left without much work to do. The project could end up costing a lot more than planned as well.

“Idle team time adds up to massive daily expenses that can not only blow your project budget but create unintended cashflow issues at the company level,” notes Gertz. 

To avoid such scenarios, determine the long-term impact a schedule change will have on your project. Before making a decision, here are some questions you should ask:

• What other activities will be delayed if I extend this deadline?
• Would bringing on a freelancer to perform the task be the best path, considering the time needed to onboard them?
• Would splitting the tasks work well for the person carrying out the activities?
• Would the team member assigned to task A have availability to take on work on the proposed date?

This is even more important if you use automatic resource leveling or smoothing . While resource leveling software might suggest splitting a task through several days, Senior Consultant at Projectum and Microsoft MVP Erik van Hurck suggests ensuring the solutions can work in the real world before implementing them. 

“Any scheduling application (be it Microsoft Project or other) will only visualize what could be a possible solution. Therefore a scheduler or project manager should never fly blindly on the results of resource leveling, but always scrutinize it to uncover any possible issues.”

It’s always good to check with the team member or a stakeholder who knows the activity to determine if such a scenario would lead to your desired outcomes.

Learn more about resource management techniques .

5. Have a people-first mindset when handling resource conflicts

75% of team members surveyed in Float's Agency Global Productivity Report admit they are overbooked at least once a month. It's safe to say that scheduling conflicts are a constant in resource management.

When faced with a resource conflict, managers often try to find a solution independently. However, your team members are often better suited to find solutions because they're the experts on their work. They know how long specific tasks take, how much extra work they can take on, and who the team can get the job done if they're unable to. 

"It's crucial to have a people-first mindset. If/when resource conflict happens, it's best to include the person involved in deciding how to proceed," says Luchen. "Sometimes team members might be able to take on more work for a brief period. Other times, given they're the experts in that specific work, they may have a more effective resolution."

While you may not implement exactly what they suggest, you'll be better equipped to make a decision that optimizes available resources without jeopardizing the project.

6. Pick your battles wisely 

Conflicts are bound to happen in projects, from scheduling issues to unrealistic timelines and unreasonable expectations. Wading into every battle could rob you of valuable time and effort. So how do you know when to take a step back and when to speak up? 

It helps to consider whether you can win or whether the situation is even a priority. "Know when it's time to take a loss and keep that in mind when you need a win," says Stephanie Hockeborn, employee experience & resource manager at Sequence Inc .

For example, if you don't have enough people to finish a project with a looming deadline and the client changes direction on the project for the fifth(!) time, it might be time to push back. "When it comes to doing the right thing for my team, my employer, and preferably both, I go full Rocky and give it all I've got," says Hockeborn. 

She recommends using everything at your disposal; "data, documentation, ROI, rapport, and presentations" to get what your team needs. For example, to avoid the resource conflict mentioned in the previous tip, you could document initial expectations and note subsequent changes to protect your team from constant change. Then you could explain the negative impact of such changes on the project's success. 

7. Stay organized 

With an abundance of information to process and everyone needing your assistance, it can be hard to keep up while managing different projects. Proper resource management begins with staying organized. That way, keeping tabs on your project's moving parts is more manageable. It also comes in handy when you must provide essential information at a moment's notice. 

"You never know when you'll be asked to have your budget reviewed or resource forecasting data analyzed," says Hockeborn.  

In her article " 15 Ways to Stay Organized at Work ," Elizabeth Harrin suggests blocking out half a day for a process review to reflect on how well your project plan is going. She also recommends booking time to write reports—a helpful tip when you have to turn them in at short notice. 

Don't leave out your workspace while organizing. Going Marie Kondo on your desk and laptop might be just the thing you need to find a report you've misplaced for weeks.

"Start with a clear, organized workspace, whether that is your home office or a shared office," says Harrin. 

8. Prioritize and leverage one-on-one meetings 

One-on-one meetings shouldn't just be a monotonous routine. In his book Output Management , Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, emphasizes the power of one-on-one meetings for performance management: 

"Let's say you have a one-on-one with your subordinate every two weeks, and it lasts one and a half hours. Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate's work for two weeks, or for some 80+ hours, and can also upgrade your understanding of what they're doing."

One-on-one meetings, in particular, provide a quiet, safe space to connect with your team members, track project progress, and spot problems that aren't always apparent. They can also save you time that would have been spent putting out fires.

Before you grab some time on a team member's calendar, here are some things to keep in mind:

No agenda, no meeting: With meetings taking up more than half of a professional's work week—about 21.5 hours according to Reclaim.ai's Productivity Trends Report — meetings aren't an employee's favorite. An agenda can eliminate unnecessary meetings and keep conversations short and focused. For example, if you notice all the items on your agenda are status updates, you can opt for an async update in Slack or move the meeting to another time when there are issues to discuss. 

• Take and share notes: Think back to your last meeting; how much of the discussion can you remember? Not much, right? Forgetting important and not-so-important details is natural. So taking notes during your meetings is essential. For Hockeborn, notes help her stay on track with "to-dos" and review previous conversations before the next one-on-one. You can use a tool like 15Five to store and share notes during the meeting. 
• Assign action points: What should your team member do after the meeting? While it is great to develop solutions to problems or point out areas to improve, you need to take immediate and concrete steps to get the desired outcome. It could be as easy as saying, "Please reach out to Stanley to help you with the user stories, and let me know if you run into any trouble."

Learn how to create a culture with fewer meetings and more time .

9. Be ready to have difficult conversations 

In one-on-one meetings or Slack threads, challenging subjects like low-performance metrics or costly project mistakes must be discussed. 

No one likes those uncomfortable conversations, but they are essential for solving problems before they balloon out of control. Such discussions might improve team engagement. 40% of respondents in Shrm's The High Cost of a Toxic Workplace Culture Report say their manager fails to engage frequently in honest conversations about work topics. 

Before getting started on a touchy subject, Hockeborn suggests "setting up a safe environment." You can do this by having a conversation in your office or during a one-on-one instead of in front of everyone. It is also vital that you avoid sharing details without your team member's permission. 

Ensure you ask questions first to understand the situation and listen without interrupting. Once you know the situation, address the concern and look for ways to solve the problem.  

10. Make time to care for yourself 

Project and resource managers often focus so much on others that they forget to care for themselves. You can only do practical work when you are in good health (mentally and physically). 

“Burnout affects everyone. To prevent it and maintain a healthy work-life balance, make sure you think about your own needs so that you can best care for your team,” says Hockeborn.  

To avoid burning out: 

• Prioritize and delegate tasks: Prioritize the tasks that need to be done right away and delegate tasks that others can do. 
• Be comfortable with done over perfect: If you are a perfectionist, getting things done sometimes feels like performing the labors of Hercules. Get comfortable with getting things done over striving for flawless execution. 
• Acknowledge productivity peaks and valleys: Use your peak periods to complete the challenging tasks. When your energy levels plummet, carry out the tasks that take less mental energy. 
• Keep your workload realistic: Use daily and weekly goals to prevent overloading yourself with work. If you can’t finish everything, move less critical tasks to future dates.

Learn how to heal from burnout .

Try the #1 resource management software for project work

More than 3,500 of the world’s top teams choose Float to plan, schedule, and track their team’s time. Rated #1 on G2 for resource management, Float gives you the most accurate view of your resource capacity to plan project work.

Use the right tools for more effective resource management

Now that you know some of the critical elements of effective resource management, the next step is to implement them. Use the right tools to make this as easy as possible .

Tracking people’s time and workload through spreadsheets can be daunting and ineffective. A purpose-built resource management tool like Float combines people and projects into a centralized view—allowing you to plan work from a single view of your team’s availability, capacity, and skills. The visual schedule makes it easy to track who’s working on what and when, keep an eye on project progress, and ensure that workloads are balanced and sustainable.

Related reads

The ultimate guide to resource management for 2023, resource manager skills and roles (explained by resource managers), what is resource management in 5 minutes or less.

• Contact Sales
• Get started

What Is Resource Management and Why Is It Important?

Resource management is the process of pre-planning, scheduling , and allocating your resources to maximize efficiency. In this article, we will define resource management, provide a few contextual examples, discuss its importance, and describe common techniques. 

Say you’re stranded on an island. What three things would you want with you?

Got your items? Well done — you’ve just practiced resource management. You have a goal (to survive), and you must decide how to accomplish that goal with as few resources as possible (three items).

In business, however, it’s not always that simple. Resource management requires a thorough understanding of and transparency into your objectives and capacity. By establishing a good process for resource management planning, you’re maximizing efficiency and overseeing the utilization of those resources.

What is resource management?

At its essence, resource management is the process of optimizing resources through pre-planning, scheduling, and allocation. 

A resource is anything needed to execute a task or project — this can be employees' skill sets or the adoption of software. There are, therefore, many types of resource management , depending on the type of project you're working on.   For example, if you’re planning an event, a few resources include scheduling staff for the event, planning what vendors to use for promotional materials, investing in software that allows attendees to register, and budgeting for everything from giveaways to catering.

Why is effective resource management important?

Resource management as part of project management is all about doing more with less. Nobody likes waste, especially in business. Resource management is centered around optimization and efficiency. When you know what you need to make a project successful, you can effectively understand how to plan resources  efficiently.

To some companies, optimum efficiency is so important that they hire someone solely devoted to resource management, also known as a resource manager. So, w hat does a resource manager do? While project managers are responsible for creating and assigning tasks to get the project done, resource managers are accountable for allocating the resources needed to make the project a success.

What are the advantages of resource management?

• Avoids unforeseen hiccups:  By understanding your resources upfront and planning how to use them, you can troubleshoot gaps or problems before they happen.
• Prevents burnout:  Effective resource management allows you to avoid “ overallocation ” (or “dependency”) of resources by gaining insight into your team’s workload.
• Provides a safety net:  Let’s say the project was not successful due to a lack of resources (it happens). Resource planning and management establish that you did everything you could with what you had.
• Builds transparency:  Other teams can gain visibility into your team’s bandwidth and plan accordingly if your team is at maximum capacity or available to take on new projects. 
• Measures efficiency:  With a high-level understanding of what’s needed to manage and execute an upcoming project, you can effectively plan and measure ROI and utilization vs. efficiency.

What are some resource management techniques?

Now that you understand resource management, let’s discuss how you can start implementing it across your projects.

1. Resource allocation

Resource allocation helps you get the most from your available resources. Based on team members’ skills and capacity, resource allocation is the process of tackling projects using the resources you have at your disposal in the most efficient manner possible.

To get a clear view of allocation, project managers will often use resource allocation reports. These can give anywhere from a high-level view to a detailed rundown of resource availability — helping you avoid schedule delays and going over budget. The better the reporting capabilities at your disposal, the more transparency and efficiency you will have in your projects.

2. Resource leveling

What is resource leveling on a project, and what are its objectives? This technique aims to discover underused or inefficiently used resources within the organization and work them to your advantage. An example of resource leveling is having a content writer with experience in graphic design help the design team by taking on small content tasks that require design work. If a team member can flex their design skills, the design team won’t need to hire a freelancer if they suddenly get flooded with design requests

3. Resource forecasting

Having a resource management plan is critical to optimizing people, materials, and budget efficiency. Resource forecasting allows you to predict your future resource requirements before a project begins. During the planning stages of a project, you could consider resource management software that forecasts the project’s scope, possible constraints , unforeseen costs, and potential risks.

To make these predictions, project managers must be extremely familiar with the project lifecycle and objectives and have an overview of available resources within the organization. Project management software provides this level of visibility, as well as easy access to your projects and resources, all in one place.

Why Wrike is the perfect resource management platform for your team

Seamless resource management can be a reality for your organization with a platform like Wrike. Store all your resources in one place and make sure everyone is on the same page with real-time approvals, prioritized goals and tasks, and shared team calendars . What's more, with time tracking capabilities and pre-built reports, you can analyze your current resources at a glance and reorganize and prioritize with just a few clicks.

Check it out for yourself with a free two-week trial .

Recommended Articles

The best resource allocator templates to help your team double output.

Resource management can be the trickiest part of planning any project. Read our list of...

Why Capacity Utilization Rates are Key to Understanding Profitability

Understanding your capacity utilization rate is key to evaluating the profitability of a...

What You Need to Know About Work Order Management

Offices aren’t exempt from needing work done every once in a while. Maybe you’ve needed...

Leading сompanies сhoose Wrike

• Project Templates
• Apps & Integrations
• CA Notice at Collection
• Project Management
• Product Development
• Professional Services
• For Project Managers
• For Marketers
• For Productivity
• For Collaboration
• Project Management Guide
• Types of project management software

For customers

• Help Center
• Interactive Training
• User Conference
• Wrike Status
• Wrike Support

For partners

• Wrike Partner Program

How Wrike helps you

• Salesforce project management
• Gantt charts
• Collaboration tools for students
• Task management
• Google project management tools
• Professional Services Guide
• Kanban Guide
• Agile Guide
• Remote Work Guide
• Return To Work Guide
• Marketing Guide
• Scrum Guide
• Product Management Guide
• Digital Marketing Guide
• Go-to-Market Guide
• Collaborative Work Management Guide

Latest in Wrike Blog

• How to Turn 404s From a Bad Experience to a Good One for Prospective Clients
• Wrike vs. Hive: Compare Hive Alternatives
• Pioneering AI In Work Management
• 5 Steps to Creating the Ultimate Risk Mitigation and Response Strategy
• Mastering Lead Source Evaluation for Better Marketing Results
• Unlocking Knowledge Potential: Tackling Common Issues in Knowledge Management Systems
• Overcoming Spreadsheet Shortcomings: How To Streamline Your Business Expense Tracking

Download our mobile app for your Android or iOS device

Subscribe to Wrike news and updates

Stay informed with the latest news and updates by subscribing to our marketing emails.

You are now subscribed to Wrike news and updates

Let us know what marketing emails you are interested in by updating your email preferences here

Sorry, this content is unavailable due to your privacy settings. To view this content, click the “Cookie Preferences” button and accept Advertising Cookies there.

Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

• Publications
• Image Gallery

National Incident Management System: Resource Management

NIMS CAN HELP leverage and manage your resources and those of the private sector and volunteer organizations.

In this section

• Command and Coordination
• Credentialing
• Implementation
• Managing Resources
• National Preparedness System
• National Qualification System
• OneResponder
• Resource Management

Resource Management, a key task to building and sustaining capabilities, is a component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) doctrine. NIMS can help your organization manage its resources — personnel, teams, facilities, equipment and supplies — and help prepare for possible risks.

Most jurisdictions or organizations do not own and maintain all the resources necessary to address every potential threat and hazard. To prepare for and respond to a wide range of emergencies, they need to leverage resources from within the community — public, private and volunteer — and enter into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions or organizations.

NIMS provides for 3 ways to manage your resources so that you can effectively share your resources with, and leverage the resources of, others.

• Resource management preparedness: requires you to identify and type resources; qualify, certify and credential personnel; plan for resources; and acquire, store and inventory resources.
• Resource management during an incident: involves identifying requirements; ordering and acquiring resources; mobilizing, tracking and reporting on resources; demobilizing; and reimbursement and restocking.
• Mutual aid agreement: Mutual aid provides essential assistance to fill mission needs through sharing resources and services between jurisdictions or organizations.

You can find more information about resource management and NIMS at NIMS Guides and Tools

The Complete Guide to Effective Resource Management to Innovate and Grow

Updated on: 13 July 2023

With the dramatic growth of technology and frequent changes in consumer behavior, organizations today are under increased pressure to constantly innovate. At the core of gaining a competitive advantage in an ever-evolving marketplace, carrying out strategic goals while staying relevant, meeting customer expectations, and increasing revenue, are the company’s resources. 

However, more often than not, organizations wind up compromising on their profits because of the inefficient use of the resources at hand. To reach new heights of successes and avoid leading to bigger losses, any organization must practice effective resource management. 

This post describes practical ways to manage organizational resources and provides techniques that can help better facilitate the process.

What is Resource Management? 

Resource management refers to the proper utilization of organizational resources. It entails planning, scheduling, and allocating both tangible and intangible resources for better performance. Its ultimate target is to maximize the efficiency of resources, hence improving the chances of success of your organizational goals , projects, or tasks. 

During the process, the business owner or manager determines how to best utilize the available resources, identify the additional resources needed, and identify the resources that are being wasted.

Importance of Resource Management 

Good resource management enables an organization to complete its work in the most efficient way possible and remain competitive with its rivals. Here’s why resource management is essential to your organization. 

• Minimize costs and increase the efficiency of delivering projects by allocating the right resource to the right project at the right time
• Foresee the demand for resources and identify potential challenges such as scheduling conflicts or shortage of resources in advance, hence preventing project failures 
• Allow for the optimal utilization of resources by finding the right balance between maximizing the productivity of your team and at the same time ensuring that they don’t feel overworked   
• Improve transparency and communication, and prevent workplace conflicts. With an overview of resource availability and planned workload, you can avoid over-allocation. 
• Allow for better strategic planning and decision-making by providing visibility into the company resources, their availability, and schedule.

Types of Organizational Resources

An organization relies on several resources for executing projects, and these fall into two categories; tangible and intangible resources. These resources typically include;

Resource Management Process

The Resource Management Lifecycle introduced by Mavenlink, lists down 5 phases “ that mirror the project delivery lifecycle from inception to analysis: Estimate, Plan, Execute, Analyze and Optimize.” 

The Estimate Phase

Effectively managing resources starts with estimating your requirements (types and quantities) of internal and external resources to complete a project. Once the project tasks have been defined, the resources needed to successfully complete them should be identified. 

There are six inputs that need to be used in the estimation of activity resources. These are

• Activity list 
• Activity attributes
• Organizational process assets 
• The enterprise environmental factors
• Project management plan 
• Resource availability

Several techniques are available to estimate the activity resources,

• The judgment of experts ; ask experts who have already performed similar tasks and get their opinion on the type of resources required 
• Alternative analysis ; this entails considering different options available for allocating resources. You can change the number or the type of resources used and explore different ways to perform a task and decide between different alternatives.
• Published estimating data ; understand how many resources you need by referring to studies, articles, and research that has relevant data from other people and organizations. 
• Project management software ; these often offer features for project managers to easily estimate the resources needed for a project and identify any constraints.
• The bottom-up estimate ; break down the complex tasks into smaller tasks and estimate the resources needed for each individual step. The cost of the individual tasks then can be added together to obtain a total estimate.

The Plan Phase

During this phase of the resource management process, your objective is to identify how to utilize the identified resources in the most efficient manner possible. This means booking your resources for high-level projects based on skill, roles, and availability. 

During this phase, you need to have a clear understanding of your resource pool which encompasses the resources, their skills, roles, and experience, availability, cost rates, and bill rates. You can refer to this resource pool as you allocate available and suitable resources to project tasks.

Resource planning allows you to prevent underutilization and overallocation of resources, and minimize task and resource dependencies.

The Execute Phase

By now resources are scheduled and the project plan has been implemented. During this phase,

• Track the performance of the resources as the project progresses. Re-allocate resources that are improperly assigned to improve performance
• Check-in frequently with the resources to ensure that they are performing well and have the necessary tools to execute their responsibilities
• Create a list of resource backups in the case of conflicts that may arise during the project

The Analyze Phase

This phase is dedicated to analyzing the accuracy of resource allocation, their performance, and their contribution to the success of the project. To execute this phase effectively, you need to gather insight and data throughout the resource management lifecycle; this includes information such as hours worked, task due dates and completion dates, increases in skill levels, etc. 

Holding a retrospective to reflect on the wins and failures of resource management during the project can help uncover more insight that can be utilized for future training or hiring purposes and resource planning purposes.

The Optimize Phase 

Based on the analysis made, you can take action to optimize your resource management process further. Identify where you need to implement change to prevent issues and where in the process you need to make improvements.

Resource Management Tips 

The tips mentioned below are to help you better implement resource management in your organization.

Get an overview of the available resources

A clear overview of the resources you are currently working with makes it easier to plan your projects around your goals . Moreover, the knowledge of all the resources available to you will help, 

• Quickly identify the right resources to assign to the right project task
• Detect potential bottlenecks early on and get a better understanding of upcoming commitments 
• Make more accurate long-term plans and forecast resources more reliably

Create a Centralized Resource Pool

A resource pool provides a clear overview of resources available to be assigned to project tasks. It helps the project manager when allocating resources and planning multiple projects . A centralized resource pool enables everyone in the team to understand the “big picture”, where they fit in, what role they have to play, and the limitations involved. This in turn helps motivate them to perform at their best to complete their individual tasks in a timely manner. 

Develop a contingency plan

Unexpected events can occur that may result in conflicts, and eventually lead to project failure. Have a proactive contingency plan in place to be prepared for resource shortages and negative circumstances in case of an emergency.

Continuously monitor project progress

Track the performance of each individual resource throughout the project to identify situations of overallocation or under-allocation. By tracking actual performance against projected performance will enable you to get a better understanding of where time is being lost and make adjustments to your allocation accordingly.

Ensure transparency

Align your team and ensure that they are working collectively towards achieving the same goal to foster transparency and trust. This also means involving the entire team during the project planning and delivery process, encouraging open communication when discussing potential risks to project resources, and ensuring that the team is aware of the project priorities.

Using a Visual Workspace for Resource Management 

A single, shared workspace to collaborate on brainstorming, planning, executing, and analyzing around your resource management plan helps centralize your resource management workflows and assets. This in turn streamlines cross-team collaboration and communication, allowing for a smoother resource management process. 

An infinite visual workspace like Creately lets you have your work breakdowns structure, resource breakdown structure, team charter, and task management boards side by side as you move through planning and executing your project with your team. Creately offers custom-made templates for various resource management and project planning tasks that teams can use right away to fast-track their work.  

Visual Techniques to Streamline Resource Management

The following visual tools can be used to better understand the status of your organizational resource utilization and resource requirements, allocate them better, and track project progress effectively. 

Work Breakdown Structure 

The work breakdown structure helps break down large projects into smaller and more manageable parts which contain the project deliverables or outcomes that it will complete. This will help quickly identify the resources needed to complete each individual project deliverable.

Refer to our Easy Guide to Work Breakdown Structures to learn how to create a WBS step-by-step.

Resource Breakdown Structure 

The resource breakdown structure represents the list of resources that will be required to execute a certain project. It hierarchically breaks down resources that will cost money (i.e. people, equipment, and material) by category and type, thus helping estimate what the project will cost and inform the budget.

Learn more about using the resource breakdown structure here .

Skills Inventory

The skills inventory is a human resource management tool that is used to record information on the skills, education, and experiences of current employees. This enables you to quickly assess whether the current staff can meet project requirements and allocate them appropriately.

Read our guide on Human Resource Planning to learn more about the manpower planning process and tools.

Kanban Board 

The Kanban board lets you visualize your workflow across multiple stages of the project (i.e. to do, in-progress, and done). In terms of resource management, the Kanban board is helpful when managing a project with scarce or limited resources that need to be utilized wisely.

Refer to our guide on How to Better Manage Your Projects with Kanban Boards to learn more about creating and using Kanban boards.

Gantt Charts 

Gantt charts provide a quick overview of the scheduled project tasks, their progress, and who’s working on them. The ability to assimilate the entire workload of the whole team at a glance makes it easier to detect areas where resources have been overallocated or underutilized.

Ready to Improve Your Resource Management Process?

 The practice of resource management is invaluable to all organizations, as resources are crucial to accomplishing organizational goals, meeting customer needs, increasing revenue, and growing the business. 

Proper resource management aids in terms of increasing team efficiency, preventing miscommunication mishaps between team members, managers, and clients, making accurate forecasts, and ironing out bottlenecks before they occur during projects. While it offers many benefits, if not done properly it can cost you a lot as well. 

We hope this guide will help you get a better grasp on your resource management process and improve your projects. 

Got more tips to share? Let us know your comments below.  

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

More Related Articles

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Please enter an answer in digits: nine − seven =

Download our all-new E-book for tips on 25 powerful Business Diagrams today!

The ultimate guide to resource management

For anyone involved in project management, resource management is a crucial skill to learn. It’s how you ensure that you have the right resources to complete the project — but even more than that, it’s how you ensure that those resources don’t go to waste over the course of the project.

Because resource management ties heavily into productivity and project success, helping you and your team to deliver projects on time and within the budget, resource management could also be considered part of your risk management strategy.

But what exactly is resource management? And what are some techniques you can adopt to manage resources effectively? We’ll answer those questions and more in this guide.

What is resource management?

Resources include anything that an organization needs to complete a project or task. Think not only about things like physical supplies, but also team member skill sets, software adoption, time involved, etc.

Resource management is how you plan, manage, and budget these resources. It involves forecasting how much you will need for upcoming tasks and projects so that you can deliver the task on time and within the specified budget.

Operational vs. strategic resource management

Operational resource management and strategic resource management are similar in concept but different in terms of time frames. Strategic resource management involves high-level planning — the resources you may need over the course of the next several years. Operational resource management focuses on the short term, like the things you will need to complete an upcoming project.

Operational resource management

Operational resource management delves into specifics, like supplies needed, skills your team needs right now, or time forecasted to complete a project.

It should help you build out an accurate project budget.

It should also help you plan deadlines for an upcoming project.

Strategic resource management

Strategic resource management is about future-proofing, like planning for skills you may need in the future as trends or business objectives shift.

Rather than specifying budgets or timeframes, this type of resource management helps organizations stay current and competitive.

Why is resource management so important?

Resource management is crucial for the same reason that grocery lists are crucial to weekly meal prep. If you shop without the list, you’re bound to forget things — and that will lead to lots of wasted time and money when you find yourself rushing to the corner store late at night to pay premium pricing for the ingredients you forgot.

Imagine that happening on a grander scale throughout the course of a project. To put it simply, managing resources well keeps things streamlined throughout the project lifecycle. It’s all about having everything you need to do the job on time and within budget constraints.

When resource shortages happen, bottlenecks form, which can lead to missed deadlines and ballooning budgets. But if you’ve planned out everything you need — from the people and skills to the supplies and facilities — then your project should move smoothly from one task or phase to the next.

What are the major benefits of practicing resource management?

Broadly speaking, resources (including things like time, budgets, software, hardware, facilities, etc.), can be broken down into three categories: materials, people, and costs. While resource management lets you streamline project workflow in lots of ways to improve every aspect of a project, it’s the human part of the equation that reaps the biggest benefits. We’ll show you some of those benefits below.

Benefit #1: It prevents burnout across your team

Everyone on your team is more than a number. They’re all essential assets that help you deliver projects. Part of resource management is managing their time properly — and by that, we don’t mean micromanaging them .

Rather, it’s all about ensuring that everyone’s workload is balanced such that they’re productive without being overloaded. When you do spot overallocation, it’s time to adjust workloads to prevent burnout. Burnout is a surprisingly common thing, too. According to a recent study by Indeed, over half (52%) of respondents experienced burnout in 2021 .

When you can provide realistic schedules, you’ll find:

😃 Your team is happier, more productive, and less stressed out.

💵 Everyone’s calendars are weighted evenly so that everyone is at maximum productivity (no one working too hard while other team members wait their turn).

👀 Project managers can more easily track schedules and fill empty spaces without doubling up on someone else’s schedule.

That isn’t to say that you should always be filling empty spaces on team member schedules. Actually, it’s better to ensure that everyone has at least a little free space. There will be times when stakeholders ask for changes or when unforeseen problems create delays. When you’re managing resources well — including human resources — team members should be able to work these things into their schedules without too much disruption to their lives.

Benefit #2: It helps you predict problems

It’s impossible to predict potential problems 100% of the time. If we could do that, there would never be any problems!

However, it is possible to anticipate potential problems and be prepared for them.

Think about things that can happen, or that have happened on past projects for an indication of what could happen on future projects. Ever spent a day not accomplishing much of anything because of a network or server outage? Sometimes tasks don’t get accomplished because team members get sick. Sometimes, they even quit.

Resource management makes it easier to deal with these issues. This is because part of resource allocation should be devoted to creating contingencies just in case something goes awry. Or, allocating buffer time so that you and your team have breathing room to catch up and meet deadlines without losing sleep over it.

Resource planning also lets you compare costs to your budget so that you can predict costs before a project starts. If you have a $5,000 budget and engineers cost $100 an hour, then you can forecast that you’ll need to keep engineer hours under 50 (and actually even less, since they won’t be your only project expense).

Benefit #3: It helps you utilize the right skillsets

It’s easy to look at a big picture calendar and decide that since most of the team has availability, that means you must have the capacity to take on another project. That kind of decision-making is also a hallmark of poor resource planning.

Doing it the right way means analyzing everyone’s skillset, then making the decision based on which skills are currently available. If the engineering team is currently at max capacity, for example, and the new project needs to start with some preliminary engineering, then the truth is that you don’t have the resources available to start the new project.

Resource management also helps you balance the workload across all skillsets. Think about that hypothetical engineering team, hard at work on the first steps of the project. Now ask yourself: In this scenario, what are the graphics designers doing while the engineers kick things off? What about the marketers?

If the answer to that question is, “Well, they’re just kind of waiting for information from the engineers,” then resources aren’t being managed as well as they could be.

Even if some members of the team need information from other members of the team to do some of their tasks, there are almost always tasks to start while they wait. Marketers can perform market research or develop buyer personas, for example. While graphic designers may not be able to do much as far as page or UI design yet, they can still begin collecting image assets or developing logos and other branded image files for later use.

Managing resources well means not just allocating resources, but also careful resource scheduling so that specialists or specialized groups within your team don’t find themselves overburdened at particular phases of the project.

Benefit #4: It creates transparency for everyone

Resource management keeps your resources organized and easy to view, which creates transparency — and transparency is key for several reasons. For team leaders and project managers, transparency means they’ll have an in-depth view of resources, assets, tasks, and more, which gives them the tools needed for project optimization and effective management.

For team members, transparency helps with time tracking and scheduling. Individuals can see where individual tasks are in the pipeline to gauge when those tasks will be headed to them for the next stage of completion.

Other teams value transparency, too, because it helps them assess your team’s bandwidth. In large organizations where teams are divided up by specialty, this lets other teams know when your team will have availability to lend their skills to a new project.

And then there are the stakeholders. Transparency lets them monitor progress, which in turn allows them to provide timely notice of changes that need to be made or other items that your team may need to consider.

Benefit #5: It makes early and on-time project delivery possible

When you get right down to it, effective resource management is the backbone of every project. As you can see in the benefits listed above, it helps you with project planning , resource allocation, and even with things like forecasting potential problems so that you can prepare for them in advance. It also helps the project stay organized.

And all of that put together means you can make on-time and even early delivery happen.

Better yet, you may even be able to produce deliverables with fewer billable hours and fewer resources used. That’s the power of efficiency. Managing resources well keeps your team running like a well-oiled machine, which lets your team meet or even exceed the project timeline.

Case study: Pravda Media Group

By now, some of the benefits to resource management are easy to see — but you can get an even clearer picture by examining how one agency ditched spreadsheets and email threads in favour of a much more efficient real-time resource management strategy. We’re speaking of B2B digital marketing agency Pravda Media Group.

Spreadsheets, email trails, status meetings: This was the old way of doing things for Pravda, and it caused a lot of problems in that it was a scattered, time-consuming approach. Worse, team members found it impossible to communicate clearly on each project or see what everyone was working on.

To correct the problem, Pravda invested in Teamwork for resource management.

The result was a night and day difference. Pravda’s CEO Kfir Pravda reports that teams now schedule projects in Gantt charts to keep track of tasks while using Teamwork’s Notebooks feature to store and keep track of plans and meeting notes. Filters help analyze project health by tracking resource allocation, potential bottlenecks, and budget projections, helping ensure that projects stay on track.

“Now I’m able to do what I call ‘proactive mentoring,” Pravda says, “because I have transparency with tasks and progress, I’m able to jump in and give them guidance on everything from client interactions to troubleshooting. We’re not wasting time finding information, or trying to figure out next steps, or get status reports of other people’s work. We’ll all 100% aligned now and working at full power, pushing ahead towards a clear goal.”

See what we mean? By managing resources, Pravda knows when a team member’s schedule is overbooked, and they also know when a project is running late. That’s the power of tracking and monitoring resources in real time.

3 resource management techniques to boost productivity

Resource management is a powerful way to track project metrics and predict problems. But what about specific techniques you can use to implement resource management? We’ll cover that below.

Allocate resources using data 📊

To allocate resources, you need to be able to take a deep dive into the numbers. Start with your resource allocation reports to get a bird’s-eye view of where people are working, how full their schedules are, and what projects need to have their resources re-evaluated.

Now, imagine that you’re working on a project for a client and it’s nearly done. The team is running behind, and the first test of the software is just two days away. Looking at the project schedule, you can see that the two software designers who are working on the launch actually need three full days to prepare for the software test.

Since you can’t add more to the software designers’ schedules, you’ll need to search your team’s availability to see if there is someone else with the right skillset who can drop their current tasks to do the urgent one — and that’s a bad place to find yourself, since it means you have no available resources and you have to risk derailing a different task or project just to tend to this one.

When you’re allocating resources, incorporate a buffer into everyone’s schedule. If everyone’s calendar has a buffer, you can resolve these issues before they derail a project. This gives everyone the breathing room needed when tasks are running late or other things happen, like when clients ask for extra features.

Level up your unused resources 🙋‍♀️

Project management is a constant juggling act to make sure everyone’s schedules have an even workload. In reality, that’s easier said than done. It’s normal to have at least some underutilized resources — but you don’t want that to go too far.

And a technique called “resource leveling” is one way to approach this problem.

Resource leveling is simple. Start by searching for underused resources within your team. To verify that these resources are actually underutilized, check that they’re not:

Working on other tasks

On vacation or off sick

Asleep (because they’re in another time zone)

If none of the above applies, it’s a sure sign that these team members have underutilized time on their calendars — and it’s time to fill those calendars up.

Next, consider the skillset of each team member with underutilized time, and evaluate why that skillset isn’t being used. For instance, let’s say you have a graphic designer on your team. Maybe their schedule is thin because at the moment, there is little in the way of graphical work to do — they’re waiting for someone else to finish up tasks before they can get going on the next batch of graphics.

In this situation, is there something else the graphic designer can do? Can they create marketing content or start building different skills, like product promotion?

If that’s a possibility, then allocate them some tasks like writing blog posts or brainstorming ideas for new products and services. This solves two problems: Your underutilized team member will make the most of their schedule while building new skills, and you won’t have to hire more staff to handle the brainstorming or blog writing.

Track every budget 💰

Staying on budget is one of the hardest parts of project management — and these statistics underscore the problem:

Seventy percent of projects fail.

Fifty-five percent of project managers say that budget overruns are the reason for project failure.

Ouch, right?

That’s why budget management is such a huge part of resource management — and budget management has its own set of components to track. You’ll need to forecast resource utilization by estimating how many people you’ll need to complete the project, you’ll need to keep project scope in check, and you’ll need to predict (or account for) unforeseen problems and risks.

Fortunately, Teamwork saves the day by giving you a resource management tool kit to better manage budgets as part of your overall resource management plan. Use it to create budgets based on:

Billable time

Non-billable time

Billed time

Unbilled time

After project kick-off, each time a team member logs time working on that project, Teamwork automatically deducts that time from the right budget based on the team member’s rate. Then, through Teamwork’s dashboard, you can check the health of the project budget, seeing how much time you estimated for the project and how much of that time has been used to date.

This gives you a better way to analyze project profitability since you have a simplified view of your team’s billable time — and with that info, you can prioritize high-value clients. It also gives you transparency, which means you’ll be better at resource forecasting. That equips you to accurately create proposals, timelines, and cost forecasts for future projects.

What to look for in a resource management tool

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to consider what you’ll need in a resource management tool. The right software should offer a blend of key features, which we’ll dive into below.

Provides real-time data and insights

Real-time data and insights are crucial. This data not only helps you stay on top of resource availability at any given time, but it also lets you spot trends that can point to potential bottlenecks or problems that may be coming in the future.

Enables seamless resource scheduling

Resource management software should give you not only the tools to track each project resource, but also the tools to schedule and allocate them. You can reduce your workload, increase transparency, and keep everything organized when you can update budgets, schedule tasks, and more, all in one space.

Offers organization-wide visibility

Organization-wide visibility is critical when you’re balancing resources across multiple projects . You’ll need to be able to assess each team member’s availability no matter what projects they’re currently working on so that you can allocate as needed. The right workload planning tool will let you see availability across all projects — and handle scheduling, budget management, and other key metrics across each of your projects.

Integrates with other go-to tools

Are spreadsheets still part of your resource management process? What about other software suites? Chances are, no matter what resource management tool you use, you’ll still use other types of software to drill down on budgets, billable hours, and other numbers. To that end, your resource management tool of choice should offer integrations for all of the apps you plan to use.

Ready to implement better resource management?

Then Teamwork has what you need. We’re a fully featured, easily configurable app that lets you automate processes and workflows while centralizing project data all in one place — including the data you need to effectively manage resources.

Ready to give it a shot? Learn more about how marketing teams leverage Teamwork for resource management and try us out!

Resources to stay productive and profitable

Related resources.

How to create a project management plan

Guide to website project management

Project management software for Mac users

How to create a project charter

Guide to Agile project management

Stay in the know

Subscribe to get the latest and greatest posts sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe today and get a weekly digest delivered straight to your inbox.

Only great content. Cancel anytime.

Get started with Teamwork.com

Start working together beautifully. See how Teamwork.com can help your team with our 30-day free trial.

• Top Features
• Management Reports
• Start Free Trial Card not required

10 Key Principles of Effective Resource Management

Do you know that according to recent data, an average employee spends a little under 40% of his or her day on the actual job? So, what happens to the rest of the day? It gets eaten up by redundant tasks, meetings, emails, and unnecessary activities. This highlights the importance of proper planning and forecasting of your projects and resources. It also means that it is very crucial to use the company's resources in the best possible way. What do we mean by resources here? It includes financial resources, people or human skills, equipment, material utilization, and much more. Proper planning and effective resource management can help organizations succeed and be ahead of their competitors. There are a few principles that guarantee effective resource planning and management. But before moving to that, let's understand what is meant by resource management.

What is Resource Management?

The main goal of project management is to collaborate various resources, processes, and technology to deliver the intended outcome. Thus, resources play a very significant role in the success of any project. So, what is meant by resource management? It is how you are managing or using your available resources. Therefore, resource management means maximizing the productivity of your resources towards the desired goal by managing them in an efficient manner.

What is Effective Resource Management?

To master effective resource management, the first step is to get a clear understanding of the end objective and the available capacity. You also need to get an insight into the competencies of the resource pool, their working style, and your future pipeline. Effective resource management involves planning, scheduling, and allocating your resources in such a way that maximizes efficiency. For this, project managers need visibility into key performance metrics and all details about the available resources. This is why a well-planned and effective resource management strategy is vital for your projects to succeed.

Top 10 Principles of Effective Resource Management That Can Put You Ahead in the Game

• Remember – Your Most Important Resources are People

One of the most important factors which are invariably overlooked is that resources are usually people. Think about it – Can all the data and graphs increase your team's utilization and productivity? The truth is that it's your team members who are responsible for any project's success. And that is the most important thing one should remember regarding effective resource management. It's important to have open communication, be a good leader and inspire, and motivate your team. You may have implemented the best resource management software but picking the most suitable people for your projects is the key. Next, creating a collaborative and transparent environment is equally important.

• Involving Your Team in the Decision-making Process

Project managers who involve their team members in decision-making and achieve common organizational goals together are more successful. Make sure you align all your resources to the right projects and set proper expectations. Your team should have clarity about the task and what is expected from them. They should also understand the importance of tasks assigned and their priority. It's also a good idea to have open discussions within the team and involve them in the risk identification of projects. You should give them the freedom to estimate the effort needed to complete a task and accordingly make their schedules while considering the priorities. This enhances their commitment to the projects and schedules.

• Clarity of How Much Time is Required to Get the Job Done

Another principle for effective resource management is to track the time and effort needed to complete certain repeatable projects. When you are monitoring project duration and hours put in, you will be startled at how the time requirements were being under budget. This is an important step to achieving a balance between effective resource planning and project management. However, if you have a clear insight into how long a task should take, then it's easy to allocate and schedule resources to various projects.

• Remember the Principle of Allocation

If effective resource planning is your goal, then you should try to allocate suitable resources for the right tasks or projects. Don't just pick any resource for any task. First, match the resource skill set, and capability, and also consider his or her interest in the given task. Then, go ahead and assign. But to do this, you need to know your resources well. Make an effort to find out which task will motivate a person and bring out his or her best potential. Assign that project or task only to that resource then and you will see how their productivity and performance go up.

• Visibility is Important

For any project manager, it is important to strike a balance between project and resource management. He should know what motivates his team but also plan and manage his projects flawlessly. How do you do that? Firstly, it’s important to have a larger view of all the projects and resources in the organization. Resource management software comes in handy here. Such a tool will help you in enterprise resource scheduling and effective resource management. With such a tool, you will have a list of all the projects and people in the organization. Then, you can identify if there are any probable loopholes or red flags that might crop up. This also enables you to take some productivity measures that may be important to run your business.

• Planning for Exigencies

You might be running your projects smoothly, but what happens when some sudden requests come up? Or if any last-minute opportunities arise, or your best resource goes on unplanned leave? Ad hoc requests are also very common, and they can derail your project schedule and team’s work. You might have not planned for such contingencies and hence all your estimates in your project and resource plan and your utilization numbers can go for a toss. Hence, it’s important to have a realistic view of what your team can accomplish. Bake in some time for any such exigencies or unplanned pitfalls, so that your project and resource plan is not impacted in a big way.

• Collaboration and Creating a Balance

A project manager needs to strike a proper balance between the resources and projects. You should be aware of what your team members are working on and how you can encourage them to do their best. So, ensure to review every project and the progress each resource is making. Identify any snags you foresee and introduce actions to resolve them. Additionally, keep tracking all key metrics to spot any areas that may require more attention.

• Have a Prioritization Strategy in Place

While doing enterprise resource scheduling, it's important to prioritize various tasks or opportunities, special requests, organizational goals, and final deliverables. To ensure effective resource planning, you need to think about how you will take care of any ad hoc requests and if they are important or urgent to address. You must have heard people say that a certain task will take just a few minutes, but that doesn't happen. At times, ad hoc requests end up hampering your entire schedule. Therefore, for effective resource management and especially while scheduling, you should be aware of how much effort a particular request or task will take. By determining your priorities in a systematic manner, you can allocate resources and streamline your business operations easily and in a better way.

• Appreciation and Encouragement go a Long Way

Resources always perform the best when they feel passionate about the work they do. If your team members are working on projects that don't match their interests or competencies, then the outcome won't be of good quality. It's vital for a project manager to know his or her teammates and find out what they enjoy doing and where their interest lies. This enables you in finding the best match when you need a resource for a project or task and optimal resource allocation will be a possibility. Also, if your team member has done well on some task, never let it pass unrewarded. It's good to let people know that their efforts are important to the project.

• Integrate Technology and Use a Resource Management Software

In today's times, using manual processes doesn't work. If you aim to improve your team's productivity, then you need to use the latest technologies and automate your processes and manual tasks. For example, if you use the right resource management software, it will take care of the status reporting, dashboards, timesheets, resource planning, etc. Removing mundane tasks will free up people's time and reduce errors. When your team members have more free time, you can reallocate them to other crucial projects that are on priority. Also, using resource management software helps you pull out the needed information and create comprehensive reports and visual dashboards.

eResource Scheduler – A Leading Resource Management Software

designed for project managers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders alike, Enbraun's eResource Scheduler transforms the way an organization operates. Manage your time in a better way and brace for success. By using this effective resource management tool, you can plan projects, use your resources optimally, track performance, and utilization, and handle leave management – all on this single Cloud-based resource scheduling platform. With its brilliant features like ease of use, high configurability, and an intuitive interface, it’s been a favored choice of many global businesses since 2011. Use this award-winning resource management software for effective resource planning and scheduling of your people and tasks conveniently. Want to create some insightful reports? Fret not! Be it from the planning stage, the development, or the review phase, with eResource Scheduler you get detailed reports and dashboards in just a few simple steps. Sign up and get a free trial to check out how this tool will benefit you.

Maximize resource utilization now

One place to schedule, plan and track all your resources

14 Days Free Trial

Card Not Required

All features included.

What is a MoSCoW Analysis? Definition and Use Guide

By Nick Jain

Prioritization and organization are two essential elements in creating a successful project and are also things that are inherently harder to achieve online. While prioritizing elements can be hard online, it doesn’t have to be. The Moscow analysis is a great tool for teams to collaborate on through online whiteboards and has takeaways that are applicable to a variety of different projects and teams.

In this article, we will define the Moscow analysis and talk about what makes it so helpful to teams everywhere. If you are interested in reading some of our other template guides, you can check out our most recent guides on design thinking and using a business model canvas here.

Moscow Analysis Definition

What is a moscow analysis.

A Moscow analysis , also known as the Moscow prioritization, is an organizational framework that helps clarify and prioritize features or requirements for a given project. By creating boundaries for the priorities, teams are able to narrow their focus and create direct and achievable goals.

Moscow is an acronym that stands for the four categories that various features can be sorted into. These categories are: Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won’t have These four categories determine the prioritization of the corresponding features and are a marker of their importance to the overall success and continuity of the project.

While the Moscow analysis is most often used to organize a project and its required elements, it can also be used in other scenarios . For example, Moscow prioritization can be applied to better align a team with its values and expectations. It can also be used to prioritize takeaways and next steps from an important meeting. Its main goal is the help visualize the prioritization of the tasks at hand.

These use cases demonstrate the flexibility of the Moscow prioritization to break down important requirements into simple prioritized areas, whether it be for team expectations or a project sprint.

Moscow Analysis Use Guide

As previously stated, the Moscow analysis consists of four major elements. These categories are explained below alongside some questions to guide what should be included in each category. For the sake of simplicity, we will use a project prioritization for reference.

This section is where you think about the core features that are necessary to the success of the project. Must have features are things that, if absent, would compromise the project as a whole. Without these features, the project would have an entirely different function and wouldn’t serve the intended purpose.

Must have features, while being the most important things to consider, should not account for every detail that will be present in the final version. The features in must have, should have, and could have should all be major considerations to be included in the project, so try and be very specific with the features you add in each section.

Some prompting questions to ask in this section could be:

• What features are absolutely essential and cannot be replaced?
• If removed, would the project achieve the same purpose?
• Will the delivery of the project be a success without this feature?

Should Have

Should have is where the project begins to become more nuanced in its prioritization. Should have features include those that are supplemental to the must have features, things customers have vocalized interest in, and other features that would make meaningful additions to the project.

Should have features should be thought of as just a step below must have. These features, while important, could be pushed to a later release while the must have features are absolutely essential. Without these things, the project will still work, but it will be better with them.

Some prompting questions to ask in this section could be;

• How does this feature compare to the must have features? What about the could have features?
• What is a helpful but not required feature?
• How would the project function if this feature is omitted?

Could have features are often misunderstood and get lumped with random possible additions. This section is meant to highlight features that you want to include but aren’t sure if they will be possible.

Could have features are even a step lower on the prioritization of should have features due to either time or substantive restraints. These are features that would be nice additions, but might not directly impact the core function of the product.

• What would be a useful tool to add that isn’t a priority?
• What is something that you’d like to add in the future?
• How would this feature impact the overall product?

Won’t have is one of the most important sections in the analysis. It defines all of the features and points that specifically will not be included in the project release. This section is critical because it narrows the scope of the project greatly and helps define the boundaries that must be followed to achieve a successful project.

In order to have a helpful won’t have section, you need to plan not only the project you’re working on but future projects and parallel endeavors as well. By thinking about what comes in the future and what exists outside of the current release, you are able to narrow the scope of the current project.

• What features will be purposefully left out of this project?
• What is being avoided or postponed for a future release?
• What features fall outside of this releases specific scope?

Moscow Analysis Advantages

Now that we’ve established a solid understanding of how to use the Moscow prioritization, let’s quickly discuss some of its advantages.

Provides Direction

One of the best advantages of using a Moscow analysis is the direction it provides to the project at hand. When organizing tasks and features into various prioritized categories, the project as a whole begins to take shape. 

Especially with the inclusion of the “won’t have” section, the Moscow analysis eliminates scope creep , a common problem that occurs when planning projects. Scope creep is a term used to explain when new features and small additions get implemented into a project, and due to these additions, the project becomes a greater task than initially imagined. Having a won’t have section clearly identifies the features that won’t be included, which means there is no misunderstanding on the bigger picture of what to include. 

Resource Division

Another advantage of using a Moscow prioritization is a clear division of resource allocation during the project. Having must have features separate from other should have and could have features means your team can clearly allocate resources to the features that are required additions and can allocate resources to the other possible features after delegating to the required sections.

This division of resources is critical when managing a complex project and helps the entire team understand their expectations and how to allocate their time.

Helps build consensus within projects

The Moscow analysis is super helpful to teams working together and helps clarify any misunderstandings about the scope and priorities of the project. It is a visual guide that stakeholders, managers, and other team members can all interact with to develop a comprehensive understanding of the project at hand, and is an amazing tool to align teams towards their shared goals.

Using a Moscow analysis is one of the best ways to improve the alignment of a team and understand the prioritization of the project at hand. While these templates are mainly used for product management, they are extremely versatile and can be applied to many different scenarios . 

Hopefully, this guide has been helpful, and if so make sure to check out our other posts around online whiteboards and visual collaboration if you want to learn more about how to interact and collaborate online.

Igniting Innovation

Powerful innovation starts as an idea. Launch your IdeaScale community today.

Ignite Innovation With Your IdeaScale Community!

IdeaScale is an innovation management solution that inspires people to take action on their ideas. Your community’s ideas can change lives, your business and the world. Connect to the ideas that matter and start co-creating the future.

Copyright © 2023 IdeaScale.

Privacy Overview

The Role of Environmental NGOs: Russian Challenges, American Lessons: Proceedings of a Workshop (2001)

Chapter: 14 problems of waste management in the moscow region, problems of waste management in the moscow region.

Department of Natural Resources of the Central Region of Russia

The scientific and technological revolution of the twentieth century has turned the world over, transformed it, and presented humankind with new knowledge and innovative technologies that previously seemed to be fantasies. Man, made in the Creator’s own image, has indeed become in many respects similar to the Creator. Primitive thinking and consumerism as to nature and natural resources seem to be in contrast to this background. Drastic deterioration of the environment has become the other side of the coin that gave the possibility, so pleasant for the average person, to buy practically everything that is needed.

A vivid example of man’s impact as “a geological force” (as Academician V. I. Vernadsky described contemporary mankind) is poisoning of the soil, surface and underground waters, and atmosphere with floods of waste that threaten to sweep over the Earth. Ecosystems of our planet are no longer capable of “digesting” ever-increasing volumes of waste and new synthetic chemicals alien to nature.

One of the most important principles in achieving sustainable development is to limit the appetite of public consumption. A logical corollary of this principle suggests that the notion “waste” or “refuse” should be excluded not only from professional terminology, but also from the minds of people, with “secondary material resources” as a substitute concept for them. In my presentation I would like to dwell on a number of aspects of waste disposal. It is an ecological, economic, and social problem for the Moscow megalopolis in present-day conditions.

PRESENT SITUATION WITH WASTE IN MOSCOW

Tens of thousand of enterprises and research organizations of practically all branches of the economy are amassed over the territory of 100,000 hectares: facilities of energy, chemistry and petrochemistry; metallurgical and machine-building works; and light industrial and food processing plants. Moscow is occupying one of the leading places in the Russian Federation for the level of industrial production. The city is the greatest traffic center and bears a heavy load in a broad spectrum of responsibilities as capital of the State. The burden of technogenesis on the environment of the city of Moscow and the Moscow region is very considerable, and it is caused by all those factors mentioned above. One of the most acute problems is the adverse effect of the huge volumes of industrial and consumer wastes. Industrial waste has a great variety of chemical components.

For the last ten years we witnessed mainly negative trends in industrial production in Moscow due to the economic crisis in the country. In Moscow the largest industrial works came practically to a standstill, and production of manufactured goods declined sharply. At the same time, a comparative analysis in 1998–99 of the indexes of goods and services output and of resource potential showed that the coefficient of the practical use of natural resources per unit of product, which had been by all means rather low in previous years, proceeded gradually to decrease further. At present we have only 25 percent of the industrial output that we had in 1990, but the volume of water intake remains at the same level. Fuel consumption has come down only by 18 percent, and the amassed production waste diminished by only 50 percent. These figures indicate the growing indexes of resource consumption and increases in wastes from industrial production.

Every year about 13 million tons of different kinds of waste are accumulated in Moscow: 42 percent from water preparation and sewage treatment, 25 percent from industry, 13 percent from the construction sector, and 20 percent from the municipal economy.

The main problem of waste management in Moscow city comes from the existing situation whereby a number of sites for recycling and disposal of certain types of industrial waste and facilities for storage of inert industrial and building wastes are situated outside the city in Moscow Region, which is subject to other laws of the Russian Federation. Management of inert industrial and building wastes, which make up the largest part of the general volume of wastes and of solid domestic wastes (SDW), simply means in everyday practice their disposal at 46 sites (polygons) in Moscow Region and at 200 disposal locations that are completely unsuitable from the ecological point of view.

The volume of recycled waste is less than 10–15 percent of the volume that is needed. Only 8 percent of solid domestic refuse is destroyed (by incineration). If we group industrial waste according to risk factor classes, refuse that is not

dangerous makes up 80 percent of the total volume, 4th class low-hazard wastes 14 percent, and 1st-3rd classes of dangerous wastes amount to 3.5 percent. The largest part of the waste is not dangerous—up to 32 percent. Construction refuse, iron and steel scrap, and non-ferrous metal scrap are 15 percent. Paper is 12 percent, and scrap lumber is 4 percent. Metal scrap under the 4th class of risk factor makes up 37 percent; wood, paper, and polymers more than 8 percent; and all-rubber scrap 15 percent. So, most refuse can be successfully recycled and brought back into manufacturing.

This is related to SDW too. The morphological composition of SDW in Moscow is characterized by a high proportion of utilizable waste: 37.6 percent in paper refuse, 35.2 percent in food waste, 10 percent in polymeric materials, 7 percent in glass scrap, and about 5 percent in iron, steel, and non-ferrous metal scrap. The paper portion in commercial wastes amounts to 70 percent of the SDW volume.

A number of programs initiated by the Government of Moscow are underway for the collection and utilization of refuse and for neutralization of industrial and domestic waste. A waste-recycling industry is being developed in the city of Moscow, mostly for manufacturing recycled products and goods. One of the most important ecological problems is the establishment in the region of ecologically safe facilities for the disposal of dangerous wastes of 1st and 2nd class risk factors.

Pre-planned industrial capacities for thermal neutralization of SDW will be able to take 30 percent of domestic waste and dangerous industrial waste. Construction of rubbish-burning works according to the old traditional approach is not worthwhile and should come to an end. Waste-handling stations have been under construction in the city for the last five years. In two years there will be six such stations which will make it possible to reduce the number of garbage trucks from 1,156 to 379 and to reduce the amount of atmospheric pollution they produce. In addition the switch to building stations with capacity of briquetting one ton of waste into a cubic meter will decrease the burden on waste disposal sites and prolong their life span by 4–5 fold. Trash hauling enterprises will also make profit because of lower transportation costs.

Putting into operation waste-segregation complexes (10–12 sites) would reduce volumes of refuse to disposal sites by 40 percent—that is 1,200,000 tons per year. The total volume of burned or recycled SDW would reach 2,770,000 tons a year. A total of 210,000 tons of waste per year would be buried. So, in the course of a five year period, full industrial recycling of SDW could be achieved in practice.

Collection of segregated waste is one of the important elements in effective disposal and utilization of SDW. It facilitates recycling of waste and return of secondary material into the manufacturing process. Future trends in segregation and collection of SDW will demand wide popularization and improvement of the ecological culture and everyday behavior of people.

In recent years the high increase in the number of cars in Moscow has brought about not only higher pollution of the atmosphere, but also an avalanche-like accumulation of refuse from vehicles. Besides littering residential and recreation areas, cars represent a source for toxic pollution of land and reservoirs. At the same time, automobile wastes are a good source for recycled products. In the short-term outlook, Moscow has to resolve the problem of collection and utilization of decommissioned vehicles and automobile wastes with particular emphasis on activities of the private sector. Setting up a system for collection and utilization of bulky domestic waste and electronic equipment refuse is also on the priority list.

In 1999 in Moscow the following volumes of secondary raw materials were produced or used in the city or were recycled: 300,000 tons of construction waste, 296,000 tons of metal scrap, 265 tons of car battery lead, 21,000 tons of glass, 62,500 tons of paper waste, 4,328 tons of oil-bearing waste, and 306 tons of refuse from galvanizing plants.

Such traditional secondary materials as metal scrap and paper waste are not recycled in Moscow but are shipped to other regions of Russia.

The worldwide practice of sorting and recycling industrial and domestic wastes demands the establishment of an industry for secondary recycling. Otherwise segregation of waste becomes ineffective.

There are restraining factors for the development of an effective system of assorted selection, segregation, and use of secondary raw resources, namely lack of sufficient manufacturing capacities and of suitable technologies for secondary recycling.

The problem of utilization of wastes is closely linked with the problem of modernization and sometimes even demands fundamental restructuring of industries. The practical use of equipment for less energy consumption and a smaller volume of wastes and a transition to the use of alternative raw materials are needed. Large enterprises—the main producers of dangerous wastes—are in a difficult financial situation now, which is an impediment for proceeding along these lines.

Private and medium-size enterprises are becoming gradually aware of the economic profitability in rational use of waste. For example, the firm Satory started as a transportation organization specialized in removal of scrap from demolished buildings and those undergoing reconstruction. It now benefits from recycling of waste, having developed an appropriate technology for the dismantling of buildings with segregation of building waste. So, as it has been already mentioned above, the first task for Moscow is to establish a basis for waste recycling.

HOW TO CHANGE THE SITUATION WITH WASTE

Transition to modern technologies in the utilization of wastes requires either sufficient investments or a considerable increase in repayment for waste on the part of the population. Obviously, these two approaches are not likely to be realized in the near future.

The recovery of one ton of SDW with the use of ecologically acceptable technology requires not less than $70–100.

Given the average per capita income in 1999 and the likely increase up to the year of 2005, in 2005 it will be possible to receive from a citizen not more than $14 per year. This means that the cost of technology should not exceed $40 per ton of recycled waste. Unfortunately, this requirement can fit only unsegregated waste disposal at the polygons (taking into account an increase in transportation costs by the year 2005).

Such being the case, it looks like there is only one acceptable solution for Russia to solve the problem of waste in an up-to-date manner: to introduce trade-in value on packaging and on some manufactured articles.

In recent years domestic waste includes more and more beverage containers. Plastic and glass bottles, aluminium cans, and packs like Tetrapak stockpiled at disposal sites will soon reach the same volumes as in western countries. In Canada, for example, this kind of waste amounts to one-third of all domestic waste.

A characteristic feature of this kind of waste is that the packaging for beverages is extremely durable and expensive. Manufactured from polyethylene terephthalate (PTA) and aluminum, it is sometimes more expensive than the beverage it contains.

What are the ways for solving the problem? Practically all of them are well-known, but most will not work in Russia in present conditions. The first problem relates to collection of segregated waste in the urban sector and in the services sector. A number of reasons make this system unrealistic, specifically in large cities. Sorting of waste at waste-briquetting sites and at polygons is possible. But if we take into account the present cost of secondary resources, this system turns out to be economically unprofitable and cannot be widely introduced.

The introduction of deposits on containers for beverages is at present the most acceptable option for Russia. This system turned out to be most effective in a number of countries that have much in common with Russia. In fact this option is not at all new for us. Surely, all people remember the price of beer or kefir bottles. A system of deposit for glass bottles was in operation in the USSR, and waste sites were free from hundreds of millions of glass bottles and jars. We simply need to reinstate this system at present in the new economic conditions according to new types and modes of packaging. Deposits could be introduced also on glass bottles and jars, PTA and other plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and Tetrapak packing.

Let us investigate several non-ecological aspects of this problem, because the ecological impact of secondary recycling of billions of bottles, cans, and packs is quite obvious.

Most of the population in Russia lives below the poverty line. When people buy bottles of vodka, beer, or soft drinks, they will have to pay a deposit value (10–20 kopeks for a bottle). The poorest people will carry the bottles to receiving points. A system of collection of packaging will function by itself. Only receiving points are needed. Millions of rubles that are collected will be redistributed among the poorest people for their benefit, and a social problem of the poor will be solved to a certain extent not by charity, but with normal economic means.

A second point is also well-known. In a market economy one of the most important problems is that of employment. What happens when the trade-in value is introduced?

Thousands of new jobs are created at receiving points and at enterprises that recycle glass, plastics, etc. And we don’t need a single penny from the state budget. More than that, these enterprises will pay taxes and consume products of other branches of industry, thus yielding a return to the budget, not to mention income tax from new jobs.

There is another aspect of the matter. Considerable funding is needed from budgets of local governments, including communal repayments for waste collection and disposal at polygons and incinerators. Reduction of expenses for utilization of waste can be significant support for housing and communal reform in general.

It is practically impossible to evaluate in general an ecological effect when thousands of tons of waste will cease to occupy plots of land near cities as long-term disposal sites. Operation costs of receiving points and transportation costs could be covered by funds obtained from manufacturers and from returned packaging. Besides, when a waste recycling industry develops and becomes profitable, recycling factories will be able to render partial support to receiving points.

Trade-in value can be introduced on all types of packaging except milk products and products for children. It could amount to 15 or 30 kopecks per container, depending on its size. If all plastic bottles with water and beer are sold with trade-in value only in Moscow, the total sum will reach 450 million rubles a year. If we include glass bottles, aluminum cans, and packets, the sum will be one billion rubles. This sum will be redistributed at receiving points among people with scanty means when they receive the money for used packaging and jobs at receiving points and at recycling factories.

The bottleneck of the problem now is the absence in Russia of high technology industries for waste recycling. It can be resolved rather easily. At the first stage, used packaging can be sold as raw material for enterprises, including those overseas. There is unrestricted demand for PTA and aluminum on the part

of foreign firms. When waste collection mechanisms are established, there will be limited investments in this branch of industry.

With regard to the inexhaustible source of free raw material, this recycling industry will become one of the most reliable from the point of view of recoupment of investments. The Government, regional authorities, the population, and of course ecologists should all be interested in having such a law.

The same should be done with sales of cars, tires, and car batteries. Prices of every tire or battery should be higher by 30–50 rubles. These sums of money should be returned back to a buyer or credited when he buys a new tire or a new battery. For sure, such being the case we will not find used batteries thrown about the city dumps. In this case the task is even simpler because there are already a number of facilities for the recycling of tires and batteries.

In fact, a law of trade-in value can change the situation with waste in Russia in a fundamental way. Russian legislation has already been prepared, and the concept of an ecological tax has been introduced in the new Internal Revenue Code. Now it needs to be competently introduced. The outlay for waste recycling has to become a type of ecological tax. To realize this task much work has to be done among the deputies and with the Government. Public ecological organizations, including international ones, should play a leading role.

ACTIVITY OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS IN THE SPHERE OF WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE MOSCOW REGION

We know examples of the ever increasing role of the general public in the solution of the problem of waste utilization, first of all in those countries that have well-developed democratic institutions. “Fight Against Waste” is one of the popular slogans of public organizations abroad. Public opinion has brought about measures of sanitary cleaning in cities, secured better work by municipal services, shut down hazardous industries, and restricted and prohibited incineration facilities. Nevertheless, the struggle against wastes in the economically developed countries, being a manifestation of an advanced attitude towards the environment, has in the long run brought about a paradoxical result. Transfer of hazardous industries to countries with lower environmental standards and inadequate public support—Russia, as an example—has made the world even more dangerous from the ecological point of view.

Russia has just embarked on the path of formation of environmental public movements by the establishment of nongovernmental organizations. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations from Russia took part in the international gathering in Bonn in March 2000 of nongovernmental organizations that are members of the International Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Elimination Network. A declaration against incineration was adopted in

Bonn by nongovernmental organizations, which called for elaboration of effective alternative technologies for utilization of waste and safe technologies for elimination of existing stockpiles of POP.

Quite a number of environmental organizations are operating now in Moscow. First to be mentioned is the All-Russia Society for the Conservation of Nature, which was established in Soviet times. There are other nongovernmental organizations: Ecosoglasiye, Ecolain, Ecological Union, and the Russian branches of Green Cross and Greenpeace. All these organizations collect and popularize environmental information and organize protest actions against policies of the Government or local administrations on ecological matters. A new political party—Russia’s Movement of the Greens—is being formed.

Laws currently in force in the Russian Federation (“On Protection of the Environment,” “On State Ecological Examination by Experts,” “On Production and Consumption of Waste”) declare the right of the public to participate in environmental examination of projects that are to be implemented, including those on the establishment of facilities for elimination and disposition of waste. Public examinations can be organized by the initiative of citizens and public associations. For example, under the law of Moscow “On Protection of the Rights of Citizens while Implementing Decisions on Construction Projects in Moscow,” public hearings are organized by the city’s boards. Decisions taken by local authorities, at referenda and public meetings, may be the very reason for carrying out public examinations. Such examinations are conducted mainly by commissions, collectives, or ad hoc groups of experts. Members of public examination panels are responsible for the accuracy and validity of their expert evaluations in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. A decision of a public environmental panel has an informative nature as a recommendation, but it becomes legally mandatory after its approval by the appropriate body of the State. Besides, the opinion of the public is taken into account when a project submitted for state environmental review has undergone public examinations and there are supporting materials.

Public environmental examination is supposed to draw the attention of state bodies to a definite site or facility and to disseminate well-grounded information about potential ecological risks. This important facet of public environmental organizations in Moscow and in Russia is very weak. To a large extent, it can be explained by an insufficient level of specific and general knowledge of ecology even on the part of the environmentalists themselves. Lack of knowledge on the part of ordinary citizens and public groups and inadequate information (for various reasons) produce alarm-motivated behavior by those who harm the organization of environmental activity in general and waste management in particular.

There are nevertheless positive examples of public participation in designing policies of local authorities in the waste management sphere.

Speaking about the Moscow region we can point to the very productive work of the Public Ecological Commission attached to the Council of Deputies in Pushchino, in Moscow Oblast.

The population of Pushchino is 21,000. The polygon for solid biological wastes (SBW) has practically exhausted its capacities. In 1996, in order to find a way out, the Administration of the town showed an interest in a proposal made by the Austrian firm FMW to support financially the construction of an electric power station in the vicinity of the town that would operate using both fuel briquettes and SBW of the town. The briquettes would be manufactured in Turkey and would contain 70 percent Austrian industrial waste with added oil sludge. It was also envisaged that during the construction period of the electric power station, 300,000 tons of briquettes would be shipped and stockpiled. The original positive decision was annulled due to an independent evaluation of the project organized by the Public Ecological Commission.

The general public of Puschino put forward a counter proposal before the Administration in order to reduce volumes of SBW disposal at the polygon and to prolong its operation—segregation of SBW (food waste, paper refuse, fabrics, metal, glass, used car batteries). As a result, a new scheme for sanitary measures in the town was worked out in 1998, which on the basis of segregation of waste provided for a considerable decrease in refuse flow to the polygon. Unfortunately, for lack of finances in the town budget, the scheme has not been introduced to the full extent. But in spite of severe shortages of special containers for segregated wastes, a network of receiving points for secondary materials was set up.

One of the pressing tasks for greater public activity is wide popularization of environmental knowledge on waste management, especially among the young generation. There is a very important role for public organizations to play in this domain when enlightenment and education are becoming a primary concern of nongovernmental organizations. Referring again to the example of the Public Ecological Commission in Pushchino, I have to underline that this organization is taking an active part in the enlightenment of the population through organizing exhibitions, placing publications in the press, and spurring school children into action to encourage cleaning of the town by means of environmental contests, seminars, and conferences. Children help the Commission organize mobile receiving points for secondary material. They even prepare announcements and post them around the town calling on the citizens to take valuable amounts of domestic wastes and car batteries to receiving points.

There are other examples of a growing influence of public organizations on the policy of administration in the sphere of waste management in the Moscow region. The Moscow Children’s Ecological Center has worked out the Program “You, He, She and I—All Together Make Moscow Clean,” which is being introduced with the support of the Moscow Government. In the framework of this program, children collect waste paper at schools, and they are taught how to

be careful about the environment and material resources. The storage facilities agreed to support the initiative. They buy waste paper at a special price for school children. Then, the schools spend the earned money for excursions, laboratory equipment, books, and plant greenery.

Another example of an enlightened activity is a project realized in 1999 by the firm Ecoconcord on producing video-clips for TV about the adverse effects of waste incineration and the illegality of unauthorized storage of waste.

The name Ecoconcord speaks for the main purpose of this organization—to achieve mutual understanding between the general public and governmental organizations, to encourage public involvement in decision-making, and to promote the formation of policy bodies that would not let public opinion be ignored.

Proceeding from the global task of integrating the activities of interested parties in lessening adverse waste pollution, public organizations have to cooperate with authorities and not stand against them. Cooperation and consensus between governmental and nongovernmental organizations in working out strategies and tactics in waste management should become a prerequisite in successful realization of state policy in this sphere in the Russian Federation.

An NRC committee was established to work with a Russian counterpart group in conducting a workshop in Moscow on the effectiveness of Russian environmental NGOs in environmental decision-making and prepared proceedings of this workshop, highlighting the successes and difficulties faced by NGOs in Russia and the United States.

Welcome to OpenBook!

You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

Show this book's table of contents , where you can jump to any chapter by name.

...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter .

Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

View our suggested citation for this chapter.

Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

Get Email Updates

Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free ? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released.

• Using Project Execution Management

Project Resource Assignment Statuses

Assignment statuses indicate the status of the resource's relationship to a project.

This table describes assignment statuses that can appear in the Assignment Status column on the Manage Project Resources page.

Related Topics

• Project Resource Request Statuses