Resource Management Is People Management: Principles, Systems, and Plans

“Resource Management Is People Management: Principles, Systems, and Plans” on Smarsheet; November 25, 2017.

Why Is Resource Management Important?

“It’s important to have a clear goal in mind when developing any business process, particularly resource management,” says Alan Zucker, Founding Principal of Project Management Essentials LLC. Zucker applies over 25 years of experience working in Fortune 100 companies, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Agile Professional (PMI-ACP).

Resource management is all about ‘working back’ from a final project objective and creating a plan that maximizes, as closely as possible, any and all resources, human and non-human. “As Stephen Covey famously said, ‘start with the end in mind,’” says Zucker.

…Utilization Management: “Utilization management is highly specialized — it’s about patient care and health insurance usage,” says Zucker. Also known as utilization review, utilization management evaluates the suitability and medical requirement of health care procedures, services, and facilities using evidence-based criteria under the provisions of an applicable health insurance plan. Utilization management helps minimize costs and determine if the recommended treatment is appropriate. Typically, utilization managers work collaboratively in a medical setting with a variety of administrative personnel and clinicians.

KPIs in Resource Management: “Once the goal is well understood, we can begin to develop processes to meet the goal,” says Zucker. “As the processes are being envisioned, we should ask, ‘How does this step or process generate value?’ It’s important to ask whether the metrics provide actionable information. ‘Do these metrics or KPIs incentivize behaviors that actually align to the strategic objective?’”

Zucker says that resource management organizations often create metrics that incentivize the wrong behavior. “For example, executives set a goal that resources be fully allocated to project work for the year,” says Zucker. “Most projects may only last three to four months, so resource managers know the current assignment and the next planned assignment. But they don’t know what project people will be working on in eight or nine months. To appear compliant with the organization’s goals, they may assign people to phantom projects just to make sure they’re not laid off or reassigned.”

Apply Agile: An Agile proponent, Zucker thinks the methodology is an excellent resource management tool for technical and non-technical projects because it values people. “Agile values the creation of cross-functional, empowered teams. The teams are kept together so that they can become high-performing,” says Zucker. “The work is prioritized and the team works down the product backlog starting with the most valuable items. In this model the team is set. The monthly run rate is known and constant. So, resource planning and estimation are very easy in Agile project management. It is the number of people times their monthly rate. The team remains as a resistant team as long as there is work for them to perform.”