What is Strategic Resource Management
And what value does it bring to your organization?
Strategisch Resource Management is the process where you utilize the resources for the short and the long term in the best way possible. This ultimately leads to successfully achievingthestrategicchange objectives.. The type of objectives depend on your type of organization. They can be quantitative or qualitative. e.g.increase market share, reducing the carbon footprint or introducing a new product. What Strategic Resource Management looks like in practice we explain below.
Three core processes of Strategic Resource Management
Strategic Resource Management consists of three core processes with different planning horizons: Capacity Planning, Resource Planning and Resource Scheduling. All three processes are performed on an ongoing basis.
1. Capacity planning
This is the most global process and involves the long term. In Capacity Planning, you make a global estimate of the skills or teams needed for each initiative in the change portfolio. You set this against the available capacity of skills or teams. The planning horizon is about three years. Doing this far ahead provides an early picture of whether changes can be realized. It also clarifies the need for steering. Steering can take the form of setting priorities, Resource Supply Management, attracting temporary or permanent capacity, training people, etc.
2. Resource Planning
This process involves the medium term. Think of approximately one calendar year. Within this level you test the global picture from ‘Capacity Planning’ against the more detailed picture from the current projects. This can lead to adjusting the planning. This phase determines how much capacity will be allocated to each project. You identify any over-allocation of skills or teams. This over-allocation is resolved by shifting projects, temporarily increasing capacity or adjusting expectations about the completion of projects.
3. Resource Scheduling
Resource scheduling concerns the short term, about 3 months. This scheduling is very detailed. Based on the “Resource Planning,” at this level you assign specific employees to projects from the resource pools. At this level you not only plan, but also compare the planned hours with the actual time spent.
The benefits of Strategic Resource Management
Strategic Resource Management offers many benefits to your organization. The three most important are:
- Improved productivity. There is a better understanding of the feasibility of the portfolio planning. This prevents employee overload and that promotes productivity.
- Projects are completed faster. By targeted use of capacity, you avoid fragmentation across too many projects. As a result, you reduce lead time.
- Better decision-making. With Strategic Resource Management you identify early on bottlenecks and capacity challenges. This allows you to solve them in a more focused way and you come to better decisionand.
Organizations that successfully manage their capacity can better respond to new opportunities and challenges.
Want to learn more about how we support resource management? Watch the introductory webinar via the button below or book a personal demo.
