I am the person in charge of several projects, which are all parallel. However, due to resource problems, the IT department needs us to give feedback on the priority of the projects, which makes IT difficult for us to complete many projects and launch them on schedule. How do you push IT to address resource issues instead of asking us to prioritize them? Saving Changes...
Seems your IT department is being reasonable. They can't set the priority for projects initiated by departments other than themselves, and they have a fixed pool of talent so when there are more projects than can be staffed optimally, someone has to prioritize them and it is better that those who are on the demand side do that rather than those on the supply side.
Kiron
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1 reply by Yanxi Guo
May 24, 2022 9:16 AM
Yanxi Guo
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thank you
we have given the priority of each project，not given the priority of whole project s.
if it department have no plan to solve it resources ，it will delay a part of our demand.
I agree with Kiron. Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that your IT department does not need more resources. It needs to be studied.
However, prioritization is very important. You probably need to prioritize your projects because of Ups and Downs in workload. Saving Changes...
Seems your IT department is being reasonable. They can't set the priority for projects initiated by departments other than themselves, and they have a fixed pool of talent so when there are more projects than can be staffed optimally, someone has to prioritize them and it is better that those who are on the demand side do that rather than those on the supply side.
Kiron
thank you
we have given the priority of each project，not given the priority of whole project s.
if it department have no plan to solve it resources ，it will delay a part of our demand. Saving Changes...
Hello,
IT has to prioritize due to resources constraints, restrictions.
IT can work on "all" issues but the risk of confusion, disorganization, increases. Causing decrease of motivation, etc. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Have you discussed augmenting IT staff through contracting? If you have the project budget, you should be using external suppliers to provide you with the temporary staff needed on your projects. Saving Changes...
Kimberly HonanITS Enterprise Solutions Manager| Cumberland County Innovation & Technology ServicesFayetteville, Nc, United States
Speaking as a manager of a division in a County IT department that struggles with staff shortages, I can understand IT asking you to prioritize the projects. But I can also understand departments need what they need and IT needs to have its own prioritization process in place. Our department supports over 30 County departments and they all have urgent projects and timelines. But we only have so many resources available. So there's a lot that has to go into prioritizing. We look at whether the departments are ready for the projects they are requesting (funds availability if needed, technology, staff availability for committment, etc.). We also look at our current workload and existing projects, if there are any state or federal requirements that are driving the request, etc. We have a weighted criteria spreadsheet that serves as our scoring system. And we use that in conjuction with a monthly project status meeting for planning and a monthly prioritization meeting for aligning workload to resources. But we also strive to recruit good talent and work with our HR department to get our positions filled. So it's not a simple answer unfortunately. It takes a multi-faceted approach involving the department, IT, and HR. Hope that helps! Saving Changes...
Ganesh KumarProgram ManagerBangalore., Karnataka, India
Hello Yanxi,
Check with your hiring team, to see if the criteria's of hiring resource could be leveraged/diluted, work out some trade off's to get people on board quickly.
Your IT Team can build capability/capacity by hiring campus grads as as interns or full time, provide continuous training to keep the supply of resources sufficient.
Check if there are projects in the organization, which are in the last/finishing phase or projects which are of lower priority and get resources.
While trying to optimize resources - people may end up working for more hours leading to burn out/resignations. Those trade off's could impact project risk.
As Mr. Stéphane suggested, look for contingent workers, plan to outsource some portion of the project work. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Yanxi
'pushing' IT will not help. You need to collaborate, understand their perspective and help them … Fighting will redirect energy to waste.
Some ideas were mentioned: hiring resources or contracting resources, but more resources means more onboarding and coordination efforts and misunderstandings, so if you double staff, you might only get 1.5 capability.
I have also seen outsourcing of either functional areas (finance, sales, ..) or type of work (application maintenance, testing) to free up internal staff for the remaining work on projects. This is probably a 2 years effort (looking for partners, RfP, negotiation, transition) and only helps you in the midterm.
Another idea is increasing efficiency e.g. by standardising (PMO), implementing flow (identifying the bottleneck), or others. But do something practical, do not chase hyped up trends.
Good luck.
Thomas
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1 reply by Stéphane Parent
Jun 02, 2022 5:50 PM
Stéphane Parent
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"... more resources means more onboarding and coordination efforts and misunderstandings, so if you double staff, you might only get 1.5 capability."
As shared by Frederick Brooks in the Mythical Man-Month.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The problem is: IT must not prioritize the projects. Project are just a mean to create solutions. IT is just a component inside the project. Tody, perhaps the critical one, but it just a component. Projects will impact the whole enterprise architecture: business, application, infraestructre, information and security layers. So, business layer is the location where prople that must prioritize solutions then the mean to crate the solution (the project) will be impacted by the prioritization. That´s the way to create a solution pipeline. If the organization do not work on it forget about to be successful on getting the solutions that will provide the expected and needed value. On the other side, organizations has to define what IT means taking into account the enterprise architecture layers I wrote before. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Jun 02, 2022 1:45 PM
Replying to Thomas Walenta
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Yanxi
'pushing' IT will not help. You need to collaborate, understand their perspective and help them … Fighting will redirect energy to waste.
Some ideas were mentioned: hiring resources or contracting resources, but more resources means more onboarding and coordination efforts and misunderstandings, so if you double staff, you might only get 1.5 capability.
I have also seen outsourcing of either functional areas (finance, sales, ..) or type of work (application maintenance, testing) to free up internal staff for the remaining work on projects. This is probably a 2 years effort (looking for partners, RfP, negotiation, transition) and only helps you in the midterm.
Another idea is increasing efficiency e.g. by standardising (PMO), implementing flow (identifying the bottleneck), or others. But do something practical, do not chase hyped up trends.
Good luck.
Thomas
"... more resources means more onboarding and coordination efforts and misunderstandings, so if you double staff, you might only get 1.5 capability."
As shared by Frederick Brooks in the Mythical Man-Month. Saving Changes...
