Overview of Resource Management

Resource management refers to the process of planning, organizing, and optimizing the use of resources within an organization to achieve specific goals and objectives. In the context of the Anywhere platform, resources refer to labour resources be they internal or external staff. 

Capacity management involves defining the resources who are available to fulfil work, their hours of work, their non-working days and their roles. To obtain a greater level of resource planning organisations can also capture specific skillsets. Resources should be grouped into resource pools in ways that are meaningful to the organisation and have a clearly defined manager. Resources may divide their time across multiple resource pools so the % allocation across pools should be defined. 

• Navigate to the People Dashboard to define resources and their attributes including start/end dates, their role and their region. This dashboard can be accessed from the 'People' option of the pull-down menu under the 'Resources' category.

• If the resource will be accessing the tool, for example to update tasks assigned to them or to create a time sheet they can be assigned subscription(s) and grants which will define the activities they can perform in the tool.

• Navigate to the People Dashboard to view existing resources. Click on the resource to open their details which will allow editing of their basic attributes including start/end dates, their role and their region. This dashboard can be accessed from the 'People' option of the pull-down menu under the 'Resources' category.

• Defining which resource pool(s) a resource is assigned to is done using the Resource Balancer which can be found under the 'Analysis' section of the pull-down menu

• Defining which days a resource works is performed in the Resource Balancer. If a resource is defined as a user of the tool they can also update their working days via their personal calendar using the User Profile page. This can be accessed by clickin on 'My Profile' in the pull-down menu or clicking on the person icon (or profile photo if supplied) to the left of the pull-down menu.

• Resources cannot be deleted. Once the resource is no longer available to fulfil work the following tasks should be performed:

  1. Navigate to the Resource Balancer and in the Team page, set the end date of the resource.

  2. Allocation(s) of work to the resource should also be removed. This is done using the Balancer page of the Resource Balancer 

• Resource Pools represent a grouping of resources managed by one or more people. How these are structured will vary from organisation to organisation. They could be in a hierarchical manner with parent and child pools or they could simply be aligned to teams.

• Navigate to the Resource Pool Dashboard to view existing pools or to set up new ones. This dashboard can be accessed from the 'Resource Pools' option of the pull-down menu under the 'Resources' category.

• Navigate to the Resource Pool Dashboard to view existing resource pools. This can be accessed from the 'Resource Pools' option of the pull-down menu under the 'Resources' category.

• Click on the resource pool to open the Resource Pool Detail Page. This will allow editing of the basic attributes including its name whether it is active, who the manager(s) are and whether it is a child of another pool. This dashboard can be accessed from the 'Resource Pools' option of the pull-down menu under the 'Resources' category.

• Defining which resources are in the pool is done using the Resource Balancer which can be found under the 'Analysis' section of the pull-down menu or is accessible from the Resource Pool Detail Page.

• Resource pools cannot be deleted. If a pool no longer exists due to restructuring it should be marked as 'Inactive' or renamed. Follow the steps described in 'Editing Resource Pools' to find and open the Resource Pool Detail Page.

• Roles represent a high-level role that is performed by a resource. Roles typically have a cost rate and, if billable, a revenue rate which can be used to automatically calculate forecast and actual costs and benefits.

• A resource can be assigned only one role, however a resource can be allocated to an item of demand with a different specified role if, for example, a resource is able to fulfil multiple roles.

• Roles are defined and managed through the Roles Dashboard available from the 'Resources' section of the pull down menu.

• Roles cannot be deleted once defined, however they can be disabled if they should no longer be used.

• Skillsets are not a mandatory requirement for resource management in the tool. If, however, a more detailed level of resource forecasting is required, then skillsets can be defined which are then allocated to resources and specified on demand. This will enable a more finely-tuned match of resource to demand.

Resource forecasting involves estimating the effort required to complete work (or demand as it may be known). This work could be on a business case for a new project, on a new or in-flight project or against 'Business As Usual' work represented in the tool by a service. Work is typically forecast at role level

• Resource forecasting is typically carried out by the person managing the work for example the project manager or service manager.

• Each portfolio entity (proposal/business case, project, service) has a resource plan where the forecast is defined. Navigate to the help for the resource plan to learn how to access the plan and how to create and manage the forecast.

• Forecasting of demand on a portfolio entity is sometimes carried out in more of a centralised approach.

• The Resource Balancer supports creating and managing demand across teams.

Resource allocation is the process by which named resources are allocated to demand.

The method of allocating resources can be configured according to business process rules. Typically, this follows one of two approaches:

• 1. Governed request and allocation process: The Project Manager defines the resourcing requirements and then ‘requests’ allocation by a resource manager or centralised planning team. This is typically used where a project draws on resources from multiple teams.

  2. PM based allocation process: Typically, this is used where managers of teams also manage their workload as projects. In this scenario, the manager of the project is able to define the roles required from their team and also allocate the resources.

• Resources can be directly allocated to demand in a resource plan. The user making the allocation must be the manager of a resource pool containing resources. Only resources in those pools can be allocated. 

• This allocation approach is suitable for situations where a resource pool manager is also responsible for managing a portfolio entity, for example a service

• Allocation of resources to demand is more commonly carried out using the Resource Balancer. This approach is more suited to a centralised allocation approach for example by a PMO team.