Is Resource Planning Only Useful For Big Companies?
Is Resource Planning Only Useful For Big Companies?
By Patricia Goh
Tying in to the project success rates in small and large projects, we will answer the following questions in this post: What is resource planning? Why is resource planning useful? Why do big companies plan their resources? Do small companies need to resource management too? What’s the best resource management software that is free?
Statistics have that small projects with a budget of less than a million dollars have a 76% success rate as compared to the 10% success rate of large projects with a budget of more than ten million dollars. Large projects have a 38% failed rate as opposed to the 4% failed rate in small projects. And even though 52% of large projects are challenged, 1/5 of small projects suffer from challenges. While there are various reasons to make up for successful, challenged and failed projects, the one important factor remains in resource planning, or the lack thereof.
What is resource planning? And why is resource planning useful?
Let’s backtrack a little. Resource could be anything – they could be people (human resource), equipment, vehicles, locations or anything that you use repeatedly to complete tasks and projects. Resource planning is essentially delegating and distributing tasks to your resources in order to complete your projects. No matter if you prefer the term ‘resource scheduling’ or ‘resource management’, it is ultimately useful for keeping track of who is doing what and when.
Why do big companies plan their resources?
Large corporates work on projects of all sizes. Having hundreds or sometimes, thousands of employees to assign work to, there is a need to quickly be able to see and keep track of how many employees are working on a project, which employees are free, when to allocate new projects to employees and more. More often than not, resource allocation plays a big part in multi-project planning. Conglomerates like General Electric, Hitachi, Samsung and Procter & Gamble carry out resource management as a necessity due to the vast size of their companies and the complexity of their strategies.
Do small companies need to resource management too?
The short answer is yes. As resource management comes in many different forms, from using simple scheduling softwares to planning work for staffs mentally, every small company CEO is already doing it in some form. Various human resource issues need to be worked through, such as how many staff does the business need to run smoothly in day-to-day operations? How many resources can the business afford? How to effectively evaluate employee performance? And more. Even with a handful of employees, it’s crucial to utilize resource planning for a sustainable future. The solution for small companies in resource management is likely to be simple, but undeniably important and rewarding.
Patricia Goh is a product specialist at Ganttic where she helps managers better utilise their resources and meet project goals. She provides guidance on resource planning and visual scheduling using Ganttic. Find out more about capacity utilisation, resource planning and project management insights at www.ganttic.com/blog.
