Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Battling the Resource Curse
It’s a brand new year, but project resources, namely the people kind, are still in short supply. This perpetual challenge can, however, be turned into an opportunity, even an advantage. The ability of project managers to plan defensively and proactively can make or break a project. Here are five guiding principles for making the most of scarce resources.
Project managers find themselves constantly battling “the resource curse” — a scarcity of resources within an abundance of projects. And while all resources seem to be in short supply, people are the resource most in demand.
The resource curse is not likely to disappear in today’s lean environment, but scarcity can be used to advantage. Scarcity presents an opportunity for focus, diversified resource utilization, and recognition that project resources can and should be employed more effectively across projects, programs, and the entire organization.
This positive perspective on scarcity is actually supported by a remarkable feature of modern economic growth. It has been found that economies with abundant natural resources have tended to grow less rapidly than natural resource-scarce economies. Economies with an initially high ratio of natural resource exports to gross domestic product tend to have low growth rates during subsequent years. This negative relationship has …
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"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." - George Bernard Shaw |