Resource Time Management Guidelines? Ideas and feedback!
Anonymous
I am interested in getting feedback from what works for others for properly managing time for billable consultants/resources. How many hours per week do you look for as billable? What are typical categories that work for you for "NON," billable work such as admin time?
I am having a rough time getting people to maintain what I'm currently doing.
Thank you so much! Saving Changes...
Bernard GorePortfolio, Programme & Project Professional| NZ PoliceWellington, New Zealand
Firstly, you aren't alone - pretty much everyone struggles with this and no-one has a perfect solution!
Typical targets across a range of industries are 75-80% of time being billable, although that is generally for permanent staff and allows for training and development time, absence, assistance with non-billable work such as occasional sales support, etc. If you look at those such as a contractor who are only there to deliver a specific billable task then you should look for at least 90% billable and probably more, as admin should account for very little.
As far as non-billable categories, best advice is keep it simple, pare it down to the absolute minimum. Ask yourself what you will do with the additional information from each category and if you can't answer that with a solid case of what value it will actually produce, then get rid of that category. I see plenty of time management work fine with a single "non-billable" category for everything other than leave and sick leave.
The main reason for multiple categories is to analyse and try to spot trends and see where efficiencies can be introduced, but unless you are actually going to do detailed analysis and business process re-engineering on things like admin, you are just adding extra admin tasks which makes things worse. Saving Changes...
