Every business has a bottom line: – "The project success". Defining project success involves meeting the objectives of the project on time, with minimum expenditure, and where ever applicable, to make maximum profit with minimum investment. Project budgets are often driven by resource costs and the efficient planning of those resources. The importance of efficient resource planning to achieve project success cannot be undermined. For efficient planning of resource a number of aspects should be taken into consideration eg: Planning should be such as to effectively cope with the demands of the project, should be based on the optimum utilization of the skills of the resources, should be done well in advance, and at the same time should take into consideration the happiness and morale of the staff.
A key benefit of effective resource planning is that it enables organizations to effectively meet project demands. Resources should be scheduled as per work or productivity demand, with more staff during busy shifts and fewer employees during slower times. Understaffing results in employee exhaustion, poor staff retention and ultimately to negative customer experiences due to poor quality of product or long waiting periods. Over-staffing can be costly and can eat into profits.
Another key benefit of resource planning is that it enables the effective utilization of skills. Optimum resource with the required skills increases efficiency and the company operates at maximum output per shift. This also provides work satisfaction to the employee and helps to retain them. Employee satisfaction is crucial to successful management.
This ensures better attendance of resources without any obligation or undue demands on their part and letting them plan their engagements. Scheduling resource ahead of time creates employee accountability. Careful resource planning, with attention to business levels and profits, is the key to maintaining the effectiveness of an operation.
Planning also allows for flexibility where employees can plan day-offs or switch shifts with co-workers with ample time for approval from the managers.
With many variables to be taken into consideration while planning, most of the time it becomes cumbersome to schedule resources efficiently and effectively. Even the most experienced professionals, who need to use resource planning software, get confused as to which software would be most appropriate and meet their demand. A large collection of software is available in the market which claims to efficiently schedule resources.
Some are very basic while others encompass all the functionalities required to efficiently plan resources of all types. Organizations that are serious about optimizing resource utilization should opt for a solution that is collaborative and can be configured to fit the organization's requirements.
