Resource Management and Capacity Planning: Your Guide to Maximum Services Efficiency

A resource supply chain requires symbiosis between knowing what your current workload is today and what your workload might be in the future.  In the world of professional services, managing complex people and planning processes via manual tools (spreadsheets) is risky.  Spreadsheets have limited controls, trace-ability and audit-ability.  They will not tell you if you are making money this month or not.  A wrong calculation can be devastating, as seen on Wall Street. Having the right technology aligns people and processes to maximize efficiency. 

Managing people without resource management or capacity planning software can result in a range of serious problems like over-commitment, poor quality of service, under-utilization, and even missing service revenue targets due to the inability to hire, train and staff for projects in time.  Let's examine some of the fundamental competencies that a modern professional services organization should be able to manage for each project, as well as the larger business.

Know If You Are Profitable

Resource analytics will tell you right away if the organization is generating enough money every month. Outside of a sales forecast, resource utilization rates will tell you how many hours each resource was able to bill their services for.  Utilization rates will tell stakeholders if they need to hire more personnel to meet the demand or make adjustments to reduce costs. 

The Right Person for the Right Assignment

Resource management is the ability to allocate the right person, with the right credentials, to the right assignment.  Having high utilization rates and a low bench is pure nirvana.  However, high utilization rates may lead to work-life stress, career burn-out or even employee churn.  Resource management takes into account the need to manage people.  Outside ...