Best resource management practices to follow

Resource management is the planning and allocation of resources to achieve the highest organizational value. The practice of planning, scheduling, and allocating people, money, and technology to achieve a business goal is known by various names in the industry.

It’s called resource management in government circles, whereas one might hear it referred to as project management in business. Whatever the name applied, this concept has been around for decades.

Effective resource management is not just about resource utilization. It’s about ensuring that the right resources are available to the suitable projects—with their own unique requirements, skill sets, and bandwidth.

In addition, they are working on appropriate activities that align with strategic corporate goals. Resource management is a crucial challenge for organizations today.

Following are several factors that you need to consider for optimum use of resources to achieve the desired results.

Estimate Demand and Supply

Pareto Principle - resource management practices
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The 80/20 rule, often called the principle of Pareto, states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. This rule is also applied to project management, where 80% of the problems are caused by 20% of the resources.

Shortage of resources is usually a limiting factor in any project. The first step is to understand which of these resources are most crucial. Some resources may be in high demand, while others might be available with much less effort.

For example, if the software you need for your business is free and open source, it is easy to download and reuse.

On the other hand, if you need a specialized piece of hardware that will take time to procure or build, you must deal effectively with this resource constraint up front.

You can use Wrike project management to enable you to predict bottlenecks and delays due to the insufficient availability of those constraints so that you can plan around them.

Design a common approach across the framework of shared resources

Building a common approach to prioritizing work across shared resources is essential to ensure that resources are managed as effectively as possible.

This will help facilitate objective decision-making and minimize the risk of falling victim to the “squeaky wheel” problem.

Monitoring unplanned work can help ensure that your group is adequately staffed for significant projects and better able to handle unexpected situations and contain delays while keeping in mind that overcommitting people can lead to quality problems and reduce overall throughput.

Think out of the box and be open to change

When you embrace different ways of working across the organization and resources, you have the potential to save time and money through better efficiency. Ensure that the tools selected are aligned to the methodology being used.

You want to avoid duplicated efforts and ensure that all teams have the latest information. A more standardized roll-up of metrics can provide the metrics needed for a comprehensive view of your organization at higher levels.

This will facilitate your organization to plan, manage, and deliver work utilizing a range of traditional or milestone-driven, iterative, Agile, collaborative work.

Team building and synergy

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Good communication and problem-solving are essential to resource management. Team members should learn to speak up when they have a concern rather than waiting for a crisis.

Meetings should be held regularly to discuss project status and changes, including who is working on what and which projects have priority over others. Team members must recognize that conflicts will occur because of the dynamic nature of business resulting in unexpected events, resources, and shortages.

Therefore, there is a need to instill the ethics of teamwork and values to ensure collective effort to resolve resource conflicts based on your immediate and downstream priorities.


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