Capacity Crowd

PlanView has been developing project, portfolio and resource management solutions since 1989. As founder and CEO, Pat Durbin has seen the project management field evolve greatly over the years. But he believes it still has a long way to go, particularly in the area of resource management, where too many organizations focus on the execution of projects without understanding their capacity to undertake them. Projects@Work asked Durbin to elaborate on this issue, among other opinions he has formed over 15 years observing and serving project-driven organizations.

How are companies failing to understand resource capacity planning?
Durbin: Many companies start with how many projects they have, and then they absorb the resource pool into those projects. In comparison, we are saying, you have a certain capacity within your organization, so how do you most productively apply organizational resources to get projects done?

It is a resource-oriented approach to managing work, where projects are one of the critical aspects of that work but not the only aspect. You have to think of everything that’s going to consume your resources. Projects come and go, but the …