How to identify the needed resources to successfully complete your project ?

If you want your project to be successful in your company, you must accomplish different stages. The first one, and for us, the most important : identify the needed resources before the beginning of the project.

This resources can be :

• Human resources,
• Financial resources,
• Material resources.

You want to optimise your project management method in order to have a better cost control and to increase efficiency ?

As you read before, the first stage is to identify the needed resources which are essential for the success of the project. In this article, we will give you some advice to reach this objective.

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Why is it essential to identify the resources of a project ?

The answer is simple : have a successful project. It’s essential for a company to divide her resources (human, material or financial), to begin and finish a project. Every project developed in a company need to be scheduled in advance.

For every stage and every task, you will have to define the resources to be used before the beginning of the project.

If identifying the resources of a project is so important, it’s because it has a dual objective :

• Develop your cost management,
• Increase your efficiency.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this topic :

• To achieve one task, you pointed that only one person is needed.
• However, the realisation of this task can be longer than expected. You already know it because this has already happened in previous projects.
• Even though, you decide to allocate only one human resource to this task.
• Unfortunately, the task is more complex than expected. The person in charge of the task loses a lot of time. This loss of efficiency has directly impacted the project by increasing the cost because it will take more time to achieve it. Another possibility can be realised by allocating another human resource to the task to make up for lost time.

In both cases, it will cost to the company more than if the project manager had decided from the outset to allocate two resources to this task.

What are the different resources of a project ?

As we pointed at the beginning of this article, there are three types of resources. Hereunder, their main characteristic.

Human Resources

Basically, the “human resources” is the term to describe every people who will participate in a project. They can be internal or external to the company. Sometimes, the companies didn’t have all the needed skills to succeed her project. In this case, they temporary hire some consultant to complete des human resources.

Financial Resources

The “financial resources” is the term linked to the global budget of the project. In other words, all of the costs and expenses of a project : team wages, renting or buying of materials, travel expenses, …

Generally, the budget of a project is given by the client. As soon as your company knows it, it will be essential to create a forecast budget for the project but also for every task.

Ideally, you may conserve a margin in the budget in case they are unexpected event or delay in the project.

Material Resources

These last resources are linked to every material resource used by the project team. Inside these resources, you can find : meeting rooms, computer equipment, software, raw material, …

Before your project, you will have to list :

• All the material resources available in your company,
• All the material resources you need to buy,
• The one who you must rent.

Identify the human resources of a project : recommendation

Material resources and financial resources are easy to explain. However, for the human resources, it’s more difficult. To identify these resources easily, we recommend this process :

• Begin by listing every task of the project,
• The next step is to identify every skill needed for every task. Obviously, all tasks require different skill. At this point, you will see if you have enough internal resources or if you will need an external recruitment of consultants.
• If you have difficulties to list and count the needed time and skills for every task, you can refer yourself to the past project. It would be much easier if you have a scheduling software because it gives the advantage to see your history.
• As soon as you have finished your recruitment, you will only have to allocate the human resources to every project’s task with the scheduling software.
• Don’t forget to add some flexibility : there are always unexpected events in every project.

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