A Bigger Boat or Smaller Shark
Jerry Manas is the author of the best-sellers Napoleon on Project Management and Managing the Gray Areas, and a recognized thought leader in organizational project and resource management. His latest book is The Resource Management and Capacity Planning Handbook (September 2014). Jerry's work has been highlighted in a variety of publications, and he has appeared on radio programs nationwide.
In the face of limited resources, executives and project leaders simply can’t keep up with the shifting priorities, emergent activities and sheer complexity of managing demand across an entire organization. This is the fundamental issue that inspired a new handbook on resource management and capacity planning.
Any organization, no matter how large or small, faces the same fundamental issue. It’s a deceptively simple, but loaded question: How do I make the best use of my limited resources? The challenge is the same whether you’re looking at a stock portfolio and trying to maximize your limited funds toward retirement or whether you’re running an organization and want to be sure you’re making the best use of the people you have.
People are an organization’s most precious asset. They’re how work gets done; how products get made; how financial targets are met; how customers are attracted; how ideas are generated; how cultures spread; and — well, you get the idea. If people are the fuel on which an organization runs — and how it accomplishes its goals — then what burns that fuel?
Demand.
Demand represents the influx of work and other activities that consume people’s time. But demand has many faces. Demand can include:
- Strategic major initiatives that can catapult an organization forward
- Large …
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"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." - Johann Sebastian Bach |
