Hi,
Does anyone know of any good software/tools available in order to manage resource which will provide clear visibility as to who is working on what, percentage of time allocated to specific projects, when resource is planned to become available, skill set etc?
We are a global IT team of 25 people and our requirements at this point in time are relatively straightforward, however, would be good if there is room for expansion of functionality requirements in the future.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Many thanks in advance. Saving Changes...
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Prasad VelagaExecutive| OptisolCollege Station, Tx, United States
If resources are not required to work on two or more tasks simultaneously, our scheduling software can easily meet your requirements. It allows multi-skilled workers and skill requirements of tasks.
Prasad
www.optisol.biz
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Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Ana
Agree with Prasad scheduling software will work. When you use Clarity network version you can also share resources over projects. This is more advanced.
Hopes this helps
Hans Saving Changes...
Don KimPROJECT-TO-PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPERT| Seeking opportunitiesSacramento, CA, United States
My organization uses Planview and you can plan and manage resources to the level you outlined. Being web based would allow your global team to get real time and up to date information on resource allocations as well.
The only caution I would suggest for this tool and any comparable PPM tool (Clarity, Primavera, etc.) is that the learning curve is steep and the investment large. Plan throughly and do your due diligence.
Andrew MakarProgram Manager| AMAKAR LLCOakland Township, Mi, United States
I had a similar issue when I was managing a PMO with 60 resources working across 30 different projects. We didn't have an expensive software solution or a server-based project portfolio management system.
Instead, we simply built a shared resource pool in Microsoft Project and created resource forecasts for all the projects in the portfolio. Each functional manager was responsible for maintaining their list of projects in a MS-Project schedule which assigned resources from a shared resource pool.
At the PMO level, I was able to look into the resource pool, make utilization decisions and manage the pipeline of incoming work compared to work in the pipeline. Obtaining the visibility to the resource level across the organization helped us obtain objective metrics and have realistic discussions on the amount and timing of new work.
It takes some additional learning but once you get the resource model built, it is a very useful tool.
Prasad VelagaExecutive| OptisolCollege Station, Tx, United States
Andrew,
I am not aware that MS Project schedule automatically assigns resources of a shared pool to tasks of various projects without conflicts when each resource has a subset of skills and each task needs any resource with a specific skill. I also do not know how to make a single shared pool of resources that have different sets of skills, and effortlessly schedule tasks of all projects with conflict-free resource assignment.
I have seen people spending hours with MS Project to develop a multi-project schedule with a feasible resource assignment. I have sympathy for them when they have to laboriously reschedule all tasks without resource conflicts, due to a major uncertain event. Some scheduling software can automatically do the same within a few seconds. Due to such automated scheduling, the users need very little training in developing meaningful schedules. The price of such software does not necessarily exceed the cost of several copies of project management software plus the cost of additional training for all users. The final benefit from scheduling software is the instantaneous generation of meaningful multi-project schedules without any laborious efforts from the users.
Regards,
Prasad
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Andrew MakarProgram Manager| AMAKAR LLCOakland Township, Mi, United States
Hi Prasad -
I appreciate the response and your company's link for software resource scheduling. The bottom line is there are a variety of ways to conduct resource management across a resource pool using Microsoft Project or a 3rd party scheduling tool.
With the proper techniques, a lot can still be accomplished with Microsoft Project if project teams are not able to adopt additional software licenses. In today's economic climate, its is important to remain innovative and find cost effective solutions using standard tools.
A few years ago, I published a series of articles about the Resource Management Model and how it was applied in my PMO.
pradeep bnvBDE| Semantic Space technologiesHyderabad, India
Hi,
Seen your requirement, our tool PPM Studio (www.ppmstudio.com) can meet all your resource, cost, release, build, test and requirement management.
You can create a work order which will give your clear visibility of task allocation, time spent, availability of resource, skill sets...
I can arrange you a demo if required and if you like it, I can also provide you a free trial for few days where you can use the product, play with it, feel it and can decide on whether it is satisfying all your needs or not.
I would suggest you to use excel for managing your resources. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested to get a simple and free solution!
Best Regards,
Vivekanandan M Saving Changes...
Don KimPROJECT-TO-PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPERT| Seeking opportunitiesSacramento, CA, United States
In all fairness to Andrew, I read the article links you posted and think the solution you present is pretty good, but using a shared resource pool in MS Project is in my opinion a very bad idea.
I've never found using Project for resource management and planning a very good solution. The resourcing mechanism in Project is just too brittle and a real pain to manage in a single project file, let alone a shared one. In addition, if anyone decides to activate the resource leveling tab, your resource forecasts will get trashed.
I think MS Project is a useful desktop tool for managing a single project schedule, but would not use it as PPM tool for a PMO unless your budget was tight and/or you have a few real expert Project user who would manage and maintain the Project files.
Even then, I'd manage the schedule in MS Project and use something else to resource manage and plan, then roll these up into a report for upper management.
This is such a big topic that gets rolled up under Project Management, but each should have their own disciple such as Project, Resource and PRMIS (Project-Resource Management Information Systems). Of course then, you'd probably have to roll these up under a moniker such as "Enterprise Project, Resource and Portfolio Management and Information Systems".
Vladimir LiberzonR&D Director| Spider Project TeamMoscow, Russian Federation
You can try Spider Project - Russian PM software that has all features that you mentioned (resource constrained scheduling and resource tracking, skill scheduling, risk simulation, no limits, any kind of reports). Spider Demo can be downloaded from http://www.spiderproject.ru/demo_e.php Demo is full functional with 40 activities per project restriction. Try it.
In Russia this software is used for most serious programs in all application areas. It also has customers in 24 other countries.
Best Regards,
Vladimir Saving Changes...
