The nuts and bolts of project resource planning – and how to do it well

What is project resource planning?

Project resource planning is vital to project success – yet less than 40% of project teams invest in resource planning and management. Good planning ensures that the right resources are available at the right time for smooth, successful project execution. Think of it as orchestrating a symphony – but instead of instruments, you’re harmonizing people, materials and tools. Your project will hit the right notes only when every element works in sync.

At its core, resource planning in project management includes:

• Identifying needs: Figuring out what you require and in what amounts.

• Taking stock: Understanding the resources you have.

• Scheduling time: Deciding when to use what.

• Defining roles: Clarity on who’s responsible for which task.

• Budgeting: Allocating costs effectively.

• Staying on track: Adjusting as needed to keep things running smoothly.

Why is project resource planning important?

Resource planning affects every stage of a project, and it doesn’t end there. The way you plan your resources now can impact concurrent or future projects, other business areas, and the company’s overall profitability. For example, if you fail to account for costs and your project goes wildly over budget, your ROI will be lower than expected. Budget may need to be pulled from a different project, leaving you with fewer resources next time. This can lead to missed targets and unmet company goals.

Now, let’s take a step back and consider the benefits within the context of the project. As a project manager, an accurate and thorough plan helps you to:

• Maximize efficiency

• Reduce waste, and

• Ensure workflows run smoothly.

It also helps your team members to:

• Understand their role in the project, and

• Collaborate effectively towards shared goals and objectives.

Project resource planning provides the clarity and direction your team needs to execute the project well and achieve the desired results, while staying on time and within budget. Of course, the work isn’t over once your project is up and running. Project resource planning means monitoring, refining and adjusting the plan until the project ends.

What is a resource management plan?

A resource management plan is one part of your overall project plan. It’s where you outline the details of what you need for your project, what it costs, and who will provide it. It’s also where you’ll define a project timeline, along with how you will keep resources in check throughout the project lifecycle. When the scope and requirements are documented and transparent, it’s much easier to:

1. Evaluate your resources.

2. Get approval on resource allocation from company leaders.

3. Align with stakeholders and identify any potential issues.

4. Keep track of changes e.g. budget cuts, team restructuring.

5. Keep your team informed and aligned throughout the project.

What should your resource management plan include?

The following three categories include the key elements you should consider when creating an effective resource management plan:

1. Resource identification and allocation

• Required resources: The resources you need for a successful project. Resources can include people (e.g. team members, stakeholders), equipment and tools, materials and supplies, and budget.

• Resource estimation: The quantity of resources you need for a successful project. For example, how many hours will a developer work on a particular task? How many units of a material will be required? You can also note any resource constraints here.

• Roles and responsibilities: Who is doing what in the project. A RACI matrix will help you define this. Embed your matrix into your project resource management plan for a quick visual overview.

2. Scheduling and budgeting

• Resource calendar: An overview of what resources are available, when. This is particularly helpful when resources aren’t available full-time or are shared across projects. Block out time in a shared calendar or use a Gantt chart to track this.

• Cost breakdown: The cost associated with each resource. Breaking down costs helps you to allocate your budget strategically, make accurate forecasts, and cut back on planned activities which don’t make sense financially.

• Acquisition strategies: How to acquire resources. For example, if you need a specific expert, will you hire a new employee, use a contractor, or train up a team member?

• Training and development: How you’ll bring the right skills and knowledge into the team. This could include learning a new software or acquiring a certification.

3. Analysis and control

• Backup plans: A plan for how you will deal with potential challenges or bottlenecks so your project doesn’t stall if a resource becomes unavailable.

• Communication processes: Guidelines on how updates related to resources should be communicated to stakeholders. These will reduce misunderstandings and confusion during your project.

• Monitoring and control measures: The processes or tools which will be used to track and manage resources throughout the project. The approach you take will depend on your project KPIs.

Find out more about setting and achieving goals as a team – and what to do if your goals still seem out of reach.

Resource planning across different industries

Every industry has unique challenges and circumstances. Whether you work in banking, construction, manufacturing or the public sector, you'll always have projects that need to get done. For example:

Banking: If you’re working in banking, managing resources for your projects might involve coordinating skilled teams, budgets and technology to tackle regulatory compliance or improving customer services. It’s all about balancing risk, meeting strict regulations and keeping everything running smoothly while driving innovation.

Manufacturing: In manufacturing, resource planning could mean making sure you’ve got the right people, materials and machines in place to meet production targets. It’s a mix of aligning schedules, staying ahead of demand and maintaining efficiency without compromising on quality.

Public Sector: If you’re in the public sector, planning resources is often about juggling budgets, staffing, and infrastructure to deliver programs or services. The challenge is usually balancing limited resources with public expectations, meeting deadlines and staying transparent and accountable.

Types of resource planning in project management

Certain industries may have multiple types of resource planning. Generally speaking, there are two universal forms of resource planning.

1. Strategic resource planning. Futurists and project managers who have an eye on future needs excel at strategic resource planning. In practice, you evaluate your current capacity and calculate what you'll need to achieve future project goals. All these calculations are meant to support a sustainable business growth model.

2. Operational resource planning. Whereas strategic resource planning focuses on the future, operational resource planning is more concerned with day-to-day responsibilities. In practice, operational planning supports the strategic vision with short-term objectives and work plans to achieve them.

Roles in resource planning

Responsibility for resource planning can fall on one person's shoulders, or it can be shared among numerous managers.

Typical roles in project resource planning include:

• Resource managers. These experts are tasked with making sure resources are used efficiently. Efficient resource management that ensures you achieve project goals are the trademarks of a successful project plan.

• Project managers. These experts know how to organize, plan and deliver well-thought-out project plans. Best of all is that they know how to achieve desired outcomes while effectively managing resources like budgets, temas and work schedules.

• Task managers. Similar to project managers, task managers help individual team members manage their resources. They assign tasks and coordinate available resources so that individual contributions help achieve the larger project goals.

Do you really need resource planning software?

Trying to oversee your project resources without digital tools can lead to significant resource planning pitfalls. However, resource management software isn’t always the answer. The right tools for your team will depend on the scope of your projects. Only if you’re running multiple large and complex projects is optimized resource management software worth the investment. This software will typically work with big datasets to help you do things like match project needs with team members’ skill set, or test various resource allocation strategies to identify the best outcome.

If that sounds too in-depth for your team, a lightweight tool which helps you manage your project resources and execute your projects is a better option. A task management tool gives you the transparency and structure you need to stay agile by easily keeping on top of project developments. In contrast to a “hardcore” resource management tool, you don’t have to deal with unnecessary features adding additional complexity to your workflows.

To ensure planning and execution runs smoothly, look to project management software with documentation functionality – such as MeisterTask. With project documentation and project management seamlessly connected, you and your team always have a full, up-to-date overview of your resources at every stage of the project.

Common pitfalls in resource planning – and how to avoid them.

Getting project resource planning right lies somewhere between art and science. Some things you simply can’t control, but steering clear of these common pitfalls will help make your project a success. Here’s what to avoid – and how.

1. A lack of visibility and transparency

It can be hard to get an overview of your resources if you don’t know what your stakeholders are working on, or how much time your team has to take on new projects. This can lead to overestimating resources and inaccurate forecasts (not to mention a lot of stress for everyone involved).

Centralizing all of your projects in an accessible and collaborative task and project management tool makes it easier to maintain transparent workflows.

This helps you to:

1. Get an overview of how resources are allocated across multiple projects.

2. Keep track of who is doing what and when.

3. View and manage your team’s workload, and

4. Gain a clear understanding of priorities and deadlines so you can plan and adapt accordingly.

To do this, you need a task or project management tool. In MeisterTask, you can assign tasks to team members, set specific deadlines, and add links for context  – e.g. to your resource planning notes. With project scope, deadlines and responsibilities clear, you have more control over your resource planning. Your team can also better organize their work and execute tasks to a high standard. Better planning and greater transparency empowers your team to work productively – and a productive team gives you more of one valuable resource: time

2. Failing to acknowledge time constraints

You want to squeeze as much value as possible from your resources, but it’s important to leave some wiggle room when planning your timeline. Expect the unexpected, such as colleagues going on sick leave or unforeseen urgent tasks. Overly-ambitious resource planning can lead to an overwhelmed and panicked team prone to mistakes. Fixing errors will add extra time to delivery, eat into your budget, and reduce the quality of output.

Of course, in order to be realistic with your time, you need to know how long things really take. One way to do this is with time tracking in MeisterTask. Use time tracking to find out how much time is spent on a task and compile the data to find an average time for completion. Then, schedule your tasks. With Timeline – MeisterTask’s Gantt chart view – you can easily see how tasks interact and overlap. For example, you might notice one week is jam-packed and the next is quiet. This helps you ensure resources are neither under-utilized or stretched to the extreme during any given time.

Nailed down how long each task takes? Create an overview note in MeisterTask to share with stakeholders and colleagues. Understanding the time required for a certain type of task will inform their own project resource planning. It will also help them to submit realistic and timely task requests to your project team.

3. Losing control of your budget

Unexpected expenses not only strain your budget but can also cause delays and reductions in quality. This can have significant consequences, particularly in manufacturing and construction industries. Just think back to that Grand Designs episode, or the fiasco with Berlin’s Brandenburg airport. Starting with an accurate and detailed budget breakdown, which should be included in your resource management plan, will help keep a sticky financial situation at bay. However, overspending can be triggered by last-minute changes or unexpected external events. So what happens if you need to fix, rather than prevent, the problem?

• First, identify exactly where the budget has been overspent – and why.

• You can then create an action plan to reduce spending and make cuts where necessary.

• You might need to recoup budget from elsewhere, which means taking a holistic view of your resource plan and making adjustments.

• Importantly, you should be open about budget overrun with your stakeholders. Willingness to communicate issues as they happen builds trust. This is important to a successful working relationship – and the success of future projects. Doing so can also create the space to find a solution together and help you bring your budget back under control.

4. Poor communication around requirements & responsibilities

With so many moving parts, project tasks – especially small to-dos – can easily slip through the net. This is often due to poorly communicated requirements. The solution? Help everyone to see exactly what is expected, from who, and when. Use Subtasks in MeisterTask to break down large tasks into smaller, actionable steps, then assign them to individual team members and set specific deadlines for each subtask. In doing so, you provide an extra layer of clarity which improves accountability and reduces confusion in your team.

Subtasks also help your team understand how each step is connected to the overall task, and how this fits into the bigger picture of the project. As such, alignment is improved, which means better collaboration and smoother workflows.

With each subtask neatly nestled under the parent task, it’s easy to stay organized and maintain control at a granular level – without losing sight of the wider project context. This is key to assessing whether your resource plan is working in practice, and whether adjustments (even small ones) need to be made. For example, you can easily identify blockers and missed deadlines for task components before they impact the overall task delivery – and take action.

Task updates and notifications make it even easier to do this as you’re alerted to developments in real-time. Likewise, keeping task-related communication on the task ensures communication is transparent and important information doesn’t get lost in email chains or instant messages.

5. Missing opportunities for learning and improvement

Missing valuable learnings can lead to you make the same planning errors across multiple projects. This is bad for business and terrible for team morale. A tool to evaluate the impact of your plan –  i.e. assess project data – is essential for identifying opportunities to refine your approach. To ensure you’re moving in the right direction, you need:

• A comprehensive performance overview: A transparent, at-a-glance view of performance metrics.

• Updated and accessible documentation: Up-to-date insights on project progress and learnings.

With MeisterTask Reports, you get an overview of missed deadlines and tasks awaiting assignment at a glance. You can instantly identify who has too much work – and who has capacity to take on more. This helps you to fairly redistribute workloads during the project and ensure no task is forgotten. Insights into the total hours dedicated to the project and specific tasks within it can inform future resource planning.

If you’re coming up against the same problems again and again, ask whether project learnings are clearly documented. Keep updates, findings and results in a shared note in MeisterTask – and encourage your team to do the same. This will ensure all stakeholders can understand and learn from the project.

Centralizing this information also saves time that would be wasted communicating the same things across multiple platforms, and keeps stakeholders aligned throughout the project’s lifecycle. When what works (and what doesn’t) is clear, you’ll be able to develop a formula for success, keep team morale high, and achieve great results.

How to create a project resource plan in 6 steps

As a recap of everything you just went through, here are the 6 main takeaways from this guide and how to create a project resource plan for your next big project.

1. Decide which resource management software to use. Make more effective resource management decisions by using resource planning software like MeisterTask. You'll be more organized and make more strategic decisions to improve project performance.

2. Identify and allocate your resources. The project can't begin until you know what resources are available to complete required tasks. Assess what resources you have in play so you can start building a resource management plan.

3. Schedule and budget resources. Once you know what you have to work with, schedule and budget the resources you'll use to complete project tasks.

4. Create communication and contingency plans. Decide how you'll communicate resource status updates with your stakeholders and share those plans. Also, remember to create backup and contingency plans because some resources may prove ineffective.

5. Build strategic and operational resource plans. Remember to distinguish between strategic and tactical planning. Map out strategic and operational plans that will help you complete the project effectively.

6. Define roles. If you have numerous stakeholders in your project, clearly define who is responsible for which resources and deliverables. This will help reduce conflicts, roadblocks and miscommunications.

   
   How we do it: Meister’s tips for project resource planning

   Hopefully it’s no surprise that there’s power in knowledge – especially when it comes to resource planning in project management. With this in mind, we asked three Meister Lobsters to share their insights and tips. Put these into practice for a smoother, more effective planning process.