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Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices

Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.

  • As CIO, you oversee a department that lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services.
  • More projects are approved by the steering committee (or equivalent) than your department realistically has the capacity for, and you and your staff have little recourse to push back. If you have a PMO – and that PMO is one of the few that provides usable resource capacity projections – that information is rarely used to make strategic approval and prioritization decisions.
  • As a result, project quality and timelines suffer, and service delivery lags. Your staff are overallocated, but you lack statistical evidence because of incomplete estimates, allocations, and very little accurate data.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • IT’s capacity for new project work is largely overestimated. Much of IT’s time is lost to tasks that go unregulated and untracked (e.g. operations and support work, break-fixes and other reactive work) before project work is ever approved. When projects are approved, it is done so with little insight or concern for IT’s capacity to realistically complete that work.
  • The shift to matrix work structures has strained traditional methods of time tracking. Day-to-day demand is chaotic, and staff are pulled in multiple directions by numerous people. As fast-paced, rapidly changing, interruption-driven environments become the new normal, distractions and inefficiencies interfere with productive project work and usable capacity data.
  • The executive team approves too many projects, but it is not held to account for this malinvestment of time. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink or swim, as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand for new services and projects with their finite supply of working hours.

Impact and Result

  • Instill a culture of capacity awareness. For years, the project portfolio management (PPM) industry has helped IT departments report on demand and usage, but has largely failed to make capacity part of the conversation. This research helps inject capacity awareness into project and service portfolio planning, enabling IT to get proactive about constraints before overallocation spirals, and project and service delivery suffers.
  • Build a sustainable process. Efforts to improve resource management often falter when you try to get too granular too quickly. Info-Tech’s approach starts at a high level, ensuring that capacity data is accurate and usable, and that IT’s process discipline is mature enough to maintain the data, before drilling down into greater levels of precision.
  • Establish a capacity book of record. You will ultimately need a tool to help provide ongoing resource visibility. Follow the advice in this blueprint to help with your tool selection, and ensure you meet the reporting needs of both your team and executives.

Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a resource management strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

1. Take stock of organizational supply and demand

Set the right resource management approach for your team and create a realistic estimate of your resource supply and organizational demand.

2. Design a realistic resource management process

Build a resource management process to ensure data accuracy and sustainability, and make the best tool selection to support your processes.

3. Implement sustainable resource management practices

Develop a plan to pilot your resource management processes to achieve maximum adoption, and anticipate challenges that could inhibit you from keeping supply and demand continually balanced.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.6/10


Overall Impact

$327,449


Average $ Saved

43


Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

CPS Energy

Workshop

10/10

$12,999

55

Bill is a very knowledgeable, patient, and thorough workshop facilitator. His ability to tailor the content before the workshop to meet our organiz... Read More

Public Investment Corporation SOC LTD.

Guided Implementation

8/10

$35,749

14

Inter-related Tools that are ready. Knowledgeable analyst

Queen's University

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

20

Long has a great perspective and was able to clearly articulate the value of the tools and how they would relate to our particular context. The too... Read More

California Department of Health Care Services

Workshop

10/10

$1.17M

110

Elvis has a wealth of experience and knowledge in Portfolio and Resource Management. The information he presented was easy to understand and follow... Read More

Amkor Technologies

Guided Implementation

10/10

$1.3M

75

InfoTech's Technical Counselor was instrumental in helping to establish Amkor's IT PMO Portfolio Management department and processes. We were ab... Read More

City of Carlsbad

Workshop

10/10

N/A

N/A

This topic is something we have never tackled before. So it's hard to quantify how much time or money it would save us. I suspect taking on the pro... Read More

Parks Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

$50,000

29

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Workshop

9/10

$23,500

10

Best part was the discussions. Paul did a great job facilitating much needed conversations amongst our different managers.

Alterra Mountain Company

Workshop

9/10

$14,949

65

A few great points to call out - Matt and his excellent facilitation skills, knowledge and bringing the team along on the journey. The tools and te... Read More

Montana Department of Revenue

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,399

5

With the exception of the meeting being brief there is no worst part. The best part is the affinity that Matt has for our PPM challenges at the De... Read More

Sherritt International Corporation

Guided Implementation

9/10

$5,000

10

Our analyst listened to all of the teams input and provided some great guidance and tools on achieving our goals.

Colliers International Canada

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

I loved the experience. The Financial impact and the estimated amount of time saved are difficult to provide an answer for as our case involves a ... Read More

Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Company d/b/a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana

Workshop

10/10

$59,849

50

Best - very practical, Bill is a very good facilitator and helped us talk through some very tactical and logistical issues.

Morrison Hershfield Group Inc.

Workshop

8/10

$100K

20

Best was the process that we need to go through to have a true resource management approach Worst was the fact that some people got shy on certain... Read More

Lee County Clerk of Courts

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

I'm looking forward to establishing realistic IT management practices by utilizing the resource management tools I learned about today. I already ... Read More

Agriculture Financial Services Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

35

Best part is having an analyst to continue to get direction and confirmation that I was making progress. Sometimes it is hard to celebrate the lit... Read More

Holy Name Medical Center

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Best: she listens and provides very good feedback Worse: none

Public Investment Corporation SOC LTD.

Guided Implementation

8/10

$8,897

5

Populating the template for the first time is always the worst. It needs time commitment. Once done, its very good to see how the information come... Read More

Libro Credit Union

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

105

Thank you Travis for walking me through the tool, you were patient, answered all my questions, set up follow up meetings and followed through on yo... Read More

W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

20

knowledgeable consultation and useful content. Ugbad was great to work with and we look gorward to speaking with her in the future.

Virginia Department of the Treasury

Guided Implementation

10/10

$3,000

12

This was just a couple of small meetings, but for an Agency that does not have the budget for large tools, this was very informative and provided m... Read More

Kentucky Housing Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

5

There is not a worst part for all of my conversations with Matt has always been helpful and concise. Having the ability to obtain tools and documen... Read More

Sunflower Bank

Guided Implementation

10/10

$2,141

10

Gokul is so easy to talk to and bounce ideas off. His in depth knowledge of project management shows with each of our conversations. I find mysel... Read More

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, Inc.

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

N/A

I appreciated having the sounding board and insights from our meetings. The biggest challenge was on my end in just being able to make the time to... Read More

Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield

Guided Implementation

5/10

N/A

N/A

City of Virginia Beach

Guided Implementation

8/10

$2,519

2

No worst part, and the best part was the advice to start using change requests when lack of resources impact the projects deliverables.

Modern Woodmen of America

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

It was an eye opening discussion. We were able to identify some areas we need to shore up, but overall we were surprised to hear we are doing pret... Read More

Agriculture Financial Services Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

$42,500

50

availability of tools and ability for analyst to adjust and talk to my specific scenarois

GSW Manufacturing

Guided Implementation

8/10

$7,559

5

City of Saskatoon, SK

Guided Implementation

10/10

$100K

115

Matt is an extremely knowledgeable advisor and has really helped fill in gaps in areas that we were struggling with. The workshop that we had in M... Read More


Workshop: Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

The Purpose

  • Obtain a high-level view of current resource management practices.
  • Identify current and target states of resource management maturity.
  • Perform an in-depth time-tracking audit and gain insight into how time is spent on project versus non-project work to calculate realized capacity.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Assess current distribution of accountabilities in resource management.
  • Delve into your current problems to uncover root causes.
  • Validate capacity and demand estimations with a time-tracking survey.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Perform a root-cause analysis of resourcing challenges facing the organization.

  • Root-cause analysis
1.2

Create a realistic estimate of project capacity.

  • Tab 2 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, the Time Audit Workbook, and survey templates
1.3

Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level.

  • Tabs 3 and 4 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
1.4

Validate your supply and demand assumptions by directly surveying your resources.

  • Complete the Time Audit Workbook

Module 2: Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

The Purpose

  • Construct a resource management strategy that aligns with your team’s process maturity levels.
  • Determine the resource management tool that will best support your processes.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify the ideal dimensions to move forward with for the resource management project.
  • A tool selection that is appropriate for your processes and that your team will be able to support.
  • Determine a realistic amount of time and effort to dedicate toward maintaining the strategy.
  • Activities

    Outputs

    2.1

    Action the decision points in Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management.

    • A wireframe for a right-sized resource management strategy
    2.2

    Review resource management tool options, and depending on your selection, prepare a vendor demo script or review and set up Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.

    • A vendor demo script or Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.
    2.3

    Customize a workflow and process steps within the bounds of your seven dimensions and informed by your tool selection.

    • A customized resource management process and Resource Management Playbook.

    Module 3: Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    The Purpose

    • Develop a plan to pilot your new processes to test whether you have chosen the right dimensions for maintaining resource data.
    • Develop a communication plan to guide you through the implementation of the strategy and manage any resistance you may encounter.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    • Identify and address improvements before officially instituting the new resource management strategy.
    • Identify the other factors that affect resource productivity.
    • Implement a completed resource management solution.

    Activities

    Outputs

    3.1

    Develop a pilot plan.

    • Process Pilot Plan Template
    3.2

    Perform a resource management start/stop/continue exercise.

    • A refined resource management process informed by feedback and lessons learned
    3.3

    Develop plans to mitigate executive stakeholder, team, and structural factors that could inhibit your implementation.

    • Stakeholder management plan
    3.4

    Finalize the playbook and customize a presentation to help explain your new processes to the organization.

    • Resource Management Communications Template

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices

    Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.

    Analyst perspective

    Restore the right accountabilities for reconciling supply and demand.

    "Who gets in trouble at the organization when too many projects are approved?

    We’ve just exited a period of about 20-25 years where the answer to the above question was usually “nobody.” The officers of the corporation held nobody to account for the malinvestment of resources that comes from approving too many projects or having systemically unrealistic project due dates. Boards of directors failed to hold the officers accountable for that. And shareholders failed to hold boards of directors accountable for that.

    But this is shifting right under our feet. Increasingly, PMOs are being managed with the mentality previously reserved for those in the finance department. In many cases, the PMOs are now reporting to the CFO! This represents a very simple and basic reversion to the concept of fiduciary duty: somebody will be held to account for the consumption of all those hours, and somebody should be the approver of projects who created the excess demand." – Barry Cousins Senior Director of Research, PMO Practice Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • IT leaders who lack actionable evidence of a resource-supply, work-demand imbalance.
    • CIOs whose departments struggle to meet service and project delivery expectations with given resources.
    • Portfolio managers, PMO directors, and project managers whose portfolio and project plans suffer due to unstable resource availability.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Build trustworthy resource capacity data to support service and project portfolio management.
    • Develop sustainable resource management practices to help you estimate, and continually validate, your true resource capacity for services and projects.
    • Identify the demands that deplete your resource capacity without creating value for IT.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Steering committee and C-suite management who want to improve IT’s delivery of projects.
    • Project sponsors that want to ensure their projects get the promised resource time by their project managers.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Ensure sufficient supply of time for projects to be successfully completed with high quality.
    • Communicate the new resource management practice and get stakeholder buy-in.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • As CIO, you oversee a department that lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services. As a result, project quality and timelines suffer, and service delivery lags.
    • You need a resource management strategy to help bring balance to supply and demand in order to improve IT’s ability to deliver.

    Complication

    • The shift to matrix work structures has strained traditional methods of time tracking. Day-to-day demand is chaotic; staff are pulled in multiple directions by numerous people, making usable capacity data elusive.
    • The executive team approves too many projects, but is not held to account for the overspend on time. Instead, the IT worker is made liable, expected to simply get things done under excessive demands.

    Resolution

    • Instill a culture of capacity awareness. For years, the project portfolio management (PPM) industry has helped IT departments report on demand and usage, but it has largely failed to make capacity part of the conversation. This research helps inject capacity awareness into project and service portfolio planning, enabling IT to get proactive about constraints before overallocation spirals, and project and service delivery suffers.
    • Build a sustainable process. Efforts to get better at resource management often falter when you try to get too granular too quickly. Info-Tech’s approach starts at a high level, ensuring that capacity data is accurate and usable, and that IT’s process discipline is mature enough to maintain the data, before drilling down into greater levels of precision.
    • Establish a capacity hub. You will ultimately need a tool to help provide ongoing resource visibility. Follow the advice in this blueprint to help with your tool selection and ensure the reporting needs of both your team and executives are met.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Take a realistic approach to resource management. New organizational realities have made traditional, rigorous resource projections impossible to maintain. Accept reality and get realistic about where IT’s time goes.
    2. Make IT’s capacity perpetually transparent. The best way to ensure projects are approved and scheduled based upon the availability of the right teams and skills is to shine a light into IT’s capacity and hold decision makers to account with usable capacity reports.

    The availability of staff time is rarely factored into IT project and service delivery commitments

    As a result, a lot gets promised and worked on, and staff are always busy, but very little actually gets done – at least not within given timelines or to expected levels of quality.

    Organizations tend to bite off more than they can chew when it comes to project and service delivery commitments involving IT resources.

    While the need for businesses to make an excess of IT commitments is understandable, the impacts of systemically overallocating IT are clearly negative:

    • Stakeholder relations suffer. Promises are made to the business that can’t be met by IT.
    • IT delivery suffers. Project timelines and quality frequently suffer, and service support regularly lags.
    • Employee engagement suffers. Anxiety and stress levels are consistently high among IT staff, while morale and engagement levels are low.

    76% of organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to. (Cooper, 2014)

    Almost 70% of workers feel as though they have too much work on their plates and not enough time to do it. (Reynolds, 2016)

    Resource management can help to improve workloads and project results, but traditional approaches commonly fall short

    Traditional approaches to resource management suffer from a fundamental misconception about the availability of time in 2017.

    The concept of resource management comes from a pre-World Wide Web era, when resource and project plans could be based on a relatively stable set of assumptions.

    In the old paradigm, the availability of time was fairly predictable, as was the demand for IT services, so there was value to investing time into rigorous demand forecasts and planning.

    Resource projections could be based in a secure set of assumptions – i.e. 8 hour days, 40 hour weeks – and staff had the time to support detailed resource management processes that provided accurate usage data.

    Old Realities

    • Predictability. Change tended to be slow and deliberate, providing more stability for advanced, rigorous demand forecasts and planning.
    • Fixed hierarchy. Tasks, priorities, and decisions were communicated through a fixed chain of command.
    • Single-task focus. The old reality was more accommodating to sustained focus on one task at a time.

    96% of organizations report problems with the accuracy of information on employee timesheets. (Dimensional, 2013)

    Old reality resource forecasting inevitably falters under the weight of unpredictable demands and constant distractions

    New realities are causing demands on workers’ time to be unpredictable and unrelenting, making a sustained focus on a specific task for any length of time elusive.

    Part of the old resource management mythology is the idea that a person can do (for example) eight different one-hour tasks in eight hours of continuous work. This idea has gone from harmlessly mistaken to grossly unrealistic.

    The predictability and focus have given way to more chaotic workplace realities. Technology is ubiquitous, and the demand for IT services is constant.

    A day in IT is characterized by frequent task-switching, regular interruptions, and an influx of technology-enabled distractions.

    Every 3 minutes and 5 seconds: How often the typical office worker switches tasks, either through self-directed or other-directed interruptions. (Schulte, 2015)

    12 minutes, 40 seconds: The average amount of time in-between face-to-face interruptions in matrix organizations. (Anderson, 2015)

    23 minutes, 15 seconds: The average amount of time it takes to become on task, productive, and focused again after an interruption. (Schulte, 2015)

    759 hours: The average number of hours lost per employee annually due to distractions and interruptions. (Huth, 2015)

    The validity of traditional, rigorous resource planning has long been an illusion. New realities are making the sustained focus and stable assumptions that old reality projections relied on all but impossible to maintain.

    For resource management practices to be effective, they need to evolve to meet new realities

    New organizational realities have exacerbated traditional approaches to time tracking, making accurate and usable resource data elusive.

    The technology revolution that began in the 1990s ushered in a new paradigm in organizational structures. Matrix reporting structures, diminished supervision of knowledge workers, massive multi-tasking, and a continuous stream of information and communications from the outside world have smashed the predictability and stability of the old paradigm.

    The resource management industry has largely failed to evolve. It remains stubbornly rooted in old realities, relying on calculations and rollups that become increasingly unsustainable and irrelevant in our high-autonomy staff cultures and interruption-driven work days.

    New Realities

    • Unpredictable. Technologies and organizational strategies change before traditional IT demand forecasts and project plans can be realized.
    • Matrix management. Staff can be accountable to multiple project managers and functional managers at any given time.
    • Multi-task focus. In the new reality, workers’ attentions are scattered across multiple tasks and projects at any given time.

    87% of organizations report challenges with traditional methods of time tracking and reporting. (Dimensional, 2013)

    40% of working time is not tracked or tracked inaccurately by staff. (actiTIME, 2016)

    Poor resource management practices cost organizations dearly

    While time is money, the statistics around resource visibility and utilization suggest that the vast majority of organizations don’t spend their available time all that wisely.

    Research shows that ineffective resource management directly impacts an organization’s bottom line, contributing to such cost drains as the systemic late delivery of projects and increased project costs.

    Despite this, the majority of organizations fail to treat staff time like the precious commodity it is.

    As the results of a 2016 survey show, the top three pain points for IT and PMO leaders all revolve around a wider cultural negligence concerning staff time (Alexander, TechRepublic, 2016):

    • Overcommitted resources
    • Constant change that affects staff assignments
    • An inability to prioritize shared resources

    Top risks associated with poor resource management

    Inability to complete projects on time – 52%

    Inability to innovate fast enough – 39%

    Increased project costs – 38%

    Missed business opportunities – 34%

    Dissatisfied customers or clients – 32%

    12 times more waste – Organizations with poor resource management practices waste nearly 12 times more resource hours than high-performing organizations. (PMI, 2014)

    The concept of fiduciary duty represents the best way to bring balance to supply and demand, and improve project outcomes

    Unless someone is accountable for controlling the consumption of staff hours, too much work will get approved and committed to without evidence of sufficient resourcing.

    Who is accountable for controlling the consumption of staff hours?

    In many ways, no question is more important to the organization’s bottom line – and certainly, to the effectiveness of a resource management strategy.

    Historically, the answer would have been the executive layer of the organization. However, in the 1990s management largely abdicated its obligation to control resources and expenditures via “employee empowerment.”

    Controls on approvals became less rigid, and accountability for choosing what to do (and not do) shifted onto the shoulders of the individual worker. This creates a current paradigm where no one is accountable for the malinvestment…

    …of resources that comes from approving too many projects. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink-or-swim, as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand with their finite supply of working hours.

    If your organization has higher demand (i.e. approved project work) than supply (i.e. people’s time), your staff will be the final decision makers on what does and does NOT get worked on.

    Effective time leadership distinguishes top performing senior executives

    "Everything requires time… It is the one truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time." – Peter Drucker (quoted in Frank)

    67% of employees surveyed believe their CEOs focus too much on decisions based in short-term financial results and not enough time on decisions that create a stable, positive workplace for staff. (2016 Edelman Trust Barometer)

    Bring balance to supply and demand with realistic resource management practices

    Use Info-Tech’s approach to resource management to capture an accurate view of where your time goes and achieve sustained visibility into your capacity for new projects.

    Realistic project resource management starts by aligning demand with capacity, and then developing tactics to sustain alignment, even in the chaos of our fast-paced, rapidly changing, interruption-driven project environments.

    This blueprint will help you develop practices to promote and maintain accurate resourcing data, while developing tactics to continually inform decision makers’ assumptions about how much capacity is realistically available for project work.

    This research follows a three-phase approach to sustainable practices:

    1. Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand
    2. Design a Realistic Resource Management Process
    3. Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Info-Tech’s three-phase framework is structured around a practical, tactical approach to resource management. It’s not about what you put together as a one-time snapshot. It’s about what you can and will maintain every week, even during a crisis. When you stop maintaining resource management data, it’s nearly impossible to catch up and you’re usually forced to start fresh.

    Info-Tech’s approach is rooted in our seven dimensions of resource management

    Action the decision points across Info-Tech’s seven dimensions to ensure your resource management process is guided by realistic data and process goals.

    Default project vs. non-project ratio

    How much time is available for projects once non-project demands are factored in?

    Reporting frequency

    How often is the allocation data verified, reconciled, and reported for use?

    Forecast horizon

    How far into the future can you realistically predict resource supply?

    Scope of allocation

    To whom is time allocated?

    Allocation cadence

    How long is each allocation period?

    Granularity of time allocation

    What’s the smallest unit of time to allocate?

    Granularity of work assignment

    What is time allocated to?

    This blueprint will help you make the right decisions for your organization across each of these dimensions to ensure your resource management practices match your current process maturity levels.

    Once your framework is defined, we’ll equip you with a tactical plan to help keep supply and demand continually balanced

    This blueprint will help you customize a playbook to ensure your allocations are perpetually balanced week after week, month after month.

    Developing a process is one thing, sustaining it is another.

    The goal of this research isn’t just to achieve a one-time balancing of workloads and expect that this will stand the test of time.

    The true test of a resource management process is how well it facilitates the flow of accurate and usable data as workloads become chaotic, and fires and crises erupt.

    • Info-Tech’s approach will help you develop a playbook and a “rebalancing routine” that will help ensure your allocations remain perpetually current and balanced.
    • The sample routine to the right shows you an example of what this rebalancing process will look like (customizing this process is covered in Phase 3 of the blueprint).

    Sample “rebalancing” routine

    • Maintain a comprehensive list of the sources of demand (i.e. document the matrix).
    • Catalog the demand.
    • Allocate the supply.
    • Forecast the capacity to your forecast horizon.
    • Identify and prepare work packages or tasks for unsatisfied demand to ensure that supply can be utilized if it becomes free.
    • Reconcile any imbalance by repeating steps 1-5 on update frequency, say, weekly or monthly.

    Info-Tech’s method is complemented by a suite of resource management tools and templates

    Each phase of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help plan your resource management strategy and sustain your process implementation.

    Resource management depends on the flow of information and data from the project level up to functional managers, project managers, and beyond – CIOs, steering committees, and senior executives.

    Tools are required to help plan, organize, and facilitate this flow, and each phase of this blueprint is centered around tools and templates to help you successfully support your process implementation.

    Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

    Tools and Templates:

    Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    Tools and Templates:

    Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Tools and Templates:

    Use Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite to support your new process without a heavy upfront investment in tools

    Spreadsheets can provide a viable alternative for organizations not ready to invest in an expensive tool, or for those not getting what they need from their commercial selections.

    While homegrown solutions like spreadsheets and intranet sites lack the robust functionality of commercial offerings, they have dramatically lower complexity and cost-in-use.

    Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite is a sophisticated, scalable, and highly customizable spreadsheet-based solution that will get your new resource management process up and running, without a heavy upfront cost.

    Kinds of PPM solutions used by Info-Tech clients

    Homemade – 46%

    Commercial – 33%

    No Solution – 21%

    (Info-Tech Research Group (2016), N=433)

    The image shows 3 sheets with charts and graphs.

    Samples of Portfolio Manager Lite's output and reporting tabs

    Info-Tech’s approach to resource management is part of our larger project portfolio management framework

    This blueprint will help you master the art of resource management and set you up for greater success in other project portfolio management capabilities.

    Resource management is one capability within Info-Tech’s larger project portfolio management (PPM) framework.

    Resource visibility and capacity awareness permeates the whole of PPM, helping to ensure the right intake decisions get made, and projects are scheduled according to resource and skill availability.

    Whether you have an existing PPM strategy that you are looking to optimize or you are just starting on your PPM journey, this blueprint will help you situate your resource management processes within a larger project and portfolio framework.

    Info-Tech’ s PPM framework is based on extensive research and practical application, and complements industry standards such as those offered by PMI and ISACA.

    Project Portfolio Management
    Status & Progress Reporting
    Intake, Approval, & Prioritization Resource Management Project Management Project Closure Benefits Tracking
    Organizational Change Management
    Intake → Execution→ Closure

    Realize the value that improved resource management practices could bring to your organization

    Spend your company’s HR dollars more efficiently.

    Improved resource management and capacity awareness will allow your organization to improve resource utilization and increase project throughput.

    CIOs, PMOs, and portfolio managers can use this blueprint to improve the alignment between supply and demand. You should be able to gauge the value through the following metrics:

    Near-Term Success Metrics (6 to 12 months)

    • Increased frequency of currency (i.e. more accurate and usable resource data and reports).
    • Improved job satisfaction from project resources due to more even workloads.
    • Better ability to schedule project start dates and estimate end dates due to recourse visibility.

    Long-Term Success Metrics (12 to 24 months)

    • More projects completed on time.
    • Reclaimed capacity for project work.
    • A reduction in resource waste and increased resource utilization on productive project work.
    • Ability to track estimated vs. actual budget and work effort on projects.

    In the past 12 months, Info-Tech clients have reported an average measured value rating of $550,000 from the purchase of workshops based on this research.

    Info-Tech client masters resource management by shifting the focus to capacity forecasting

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Education

    Source Info-Tech Client

    Situation

    • There are more than 200 people in the IT organization.
    • IT is essentially a shared services environment with clients spanning multiple institutions across a wide geography.
    • The PMO identified dedicated resources for resource management.

    Complication

    • The definition of “resource management” was constantly shifting between accounting the past (i.e. time records), the present (i.e. work assignments), and the future (i.e. long term project allocations).
    • The task data set (i.e. for current work assignments) was not aligned to the historic time records or future capacity.
    • It was difficult to predict or account for the spend, which exceeded 30,000 hours per month.

    “We’re told we can’t say NO to projects. But this new tool set and approach allows us to give an informed WHEN.” – Senior PMO Director, Education

    Resolution

    • The leadership decided to forecast and communicate their resource capacity on a 3-4 month forecast horizon using Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager 2017.
    • Unallocated resource capacity was identified within certain skill sets that had previously been assessed as fully allocated. While some of the more high-visibility staff were indeed overallocated, other more junior personnel had been systemically underutilized on projects.
    • The high demand for IT project resourcing was immediately placed in the context of a believable, credible expression of supply.

    Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    “Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

    Guided Implementation

    “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

    Workshop

    “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

    Consulting

    “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices – project overview

    1. Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand 2. Design a Realistic Resource Management Process 3. Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Set a resource management course of action

    1.2 Create realistic estimates of supply and demand

    2.1 Customize the seven dimensions of resource management

    2.2 Determine the resource management tool that will best support your process

    2.3 Build process steps to ensure data accuracy and sustainability

    3.1 Pilot your resource management process to assess viability

    3.2 Plan to engage your stakeholders with your playbook

    Guided Implementations
    • Scoping call
    • Assess how accountability for resource management is currently distributed
    • Create a realistic estimate of project capacity
    • Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level
    • Set your seven dimensions of resource management
    • Jump-start spreadsheet-based resource management with Portfolio Manager Lite
    • Build on the workflow to determine how data will be collected and who will support the process
    • Define the scope of a pilot and determine logistics
    • Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities
    • Brainstorm and plan for potential resistance to change, objections, and fatigue from stakeholders
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    • Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

    Module 2:

    • Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    Module 3:

    • Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Phase 1 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Phase 2 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Phase 3 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Communications Template

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4 Workshop Day 5
    Activities

    Introduction to PPM and resource management

    1.1 Complete and review PPM Current State Scorecard Assessment

    1.2 Perform root cause analysis of resource management challenges

    1.3 Initiate time audit survey of management and staff

    Take stock of supply and demand

    2.1 Review the outputs of the time audit survey and analyze the data

    2.2 Analyze project and non-project demands, including the sources of those demands

    2.3 Set the seven dimensions of resource management

    Design a resource management process

    3.1 Review resource management tool options

    3.2 Prepare a vendor demo script or review Portfolio Manager Lite

    3.3 Build process steps to ensure data accuracy and sustainability

    Pilot and refine the process

    4.1 Define methods for piloting the strategy (after the workshop)

    4.2 Complete the Process Pilot Plan Template

    4.3 Conduct a mock resource management meeting

    4.4 Perform a RACI exercise

    Communicate and implement the process

    5.1 Brainstorm potential implications of the new strategy and develop a plan to manage stakeholder and staff resistance to the strategy

    5.2 Customize the Resource Management Communications Template

    5.3 Finalize the playbook

    Deliverables
    1. PPM Current State Scorecard Assessment
    2. Root cause analysis
    3. Time Audit Workbook and survey templates
    1. Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
    1. Portfolio Manager Lite
    2. PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script
    3. Tentative Resource Management Playbook
    1. Process Pilot Plan Template
    2. RACI chart
    1. Resource Management Communications Template
    2. Finalized Resource Management Playbook
    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices preview picture

    About Info-Tech

    Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

    We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

    MEMBER RATING

    9.6/10
    Overall Impact

    $327,449
    Average $ Saved

    43
    Average Days Saved

    After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

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    Guided Implementation 1: Take stock of organizational supply and demand
    • Call 1: Assess how accountability for resource management is currently distributed.
    • Call 2: Create a realistic estimate of project capacity.
    • Call 3: Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level.

    Guided Implementation 2: Design a realistic resource management process
    • Call 1: Set your seven dimensions of resource management.
    • Call 2: Jump-start spreadsheet-based resource management with Portfolio Manager Lite.
    • Call 3: Build on the workflow to determine how data will be collected and who will support the process.

    Guided Implementation 3: Implement sustainable resource management practices
    • Call 1: Define the scope of a pilot and determine logistics.
    • Call 2: Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities.
    • Call 3: Brainstorm and plan for potential resistance to change, objections, and fatigue from stakeholders.

    Authors

    Travis Duncan

    Barry Cousins

    David Lee

    Contributors

    • Trevor Bramwell, ICT Project Manager, Viridor Waste Management
    • John Hansknecht, Director of Technology, University of Detroit Jesuit High School & Academy
    • Brian Lasby, Project Manager, Toronto Catholic District School Board
    • Jean Charles Parise, CIO & DSO, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
    • Darren Schell, Associate Executive Director of IT Services, University of Lethbridge
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