What tools for resource management?

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begeland

Question for the contributors here. What would you use as a tool for overall resource management? It doesn't have to necessarily be part of a the "in use" project management scheduling tool, that it can be. So I guess this is a multi-part question.

1) What PM tool do you think does the best with resource management? why?

2) What else do you use for resource management?

I ask because I just discussed services with a founder of Resource Guru...not sure if they're software is awesome or not (if you have used it please share your thoughts because I haven't touched it yet and my discussion centered on my services, not their software...I'm not sure if it integrates with existing PM scheduling software or not). I usually use my own resource forecast/analysis spreadsheet template and whatever PM tool I happen to be using. For one organization I was consulting for I set up an MS Project resource pool for them so they could see how under or overutilized resources were on all of their projects...but what do you guys use as an enterprise tool...if you use such a thing? Thanks!
FGrayling
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Joined: Wed 05 Nov 2014 2:51 pm

I'm also keen to hear about tools used for resource management.

I'm new to project management and the templates used at the company I work for are fairly new and a lot of PM's don't like them (myself included) so I wanted to see what other people use to see if we could change our approach so that we're all happier with the resourcing tools used.

Our one is currently very basic and has been created by someone who has very little experience/exposure to PM, I'm keen not to share my opinion unless I have something better as an idea.

Thanks
Fran
NickC
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Joined: Fri 09 Mar 2012 8:45 am

Good question.

I approach this in 2 ways.

1. Project Manager Plans

Project Managers use MS Project and use a shared resource pool that shows resource usage across all projects.

This provides a general understanding of what can be delivered, deferred, not taken on, etc.

It is not meant to be an accurate forecast and minor peaks and troughs are ignored else we'll be constantly tweaking plans.

2. Team Manager Schedules

Team Managers take the relevant work packages from the approved plans and enter them into a Team Schedule (Excel). The team managers then issue the work to team members at task level.

These sheets have the names of each team member entered at the side of each work package.
The hours that are to be spent on each work package are entered for each day in advance:

Project-------Work Package--------Who------Mon------Tue------Wed------Thu------Fri

ABC------------Designs---------------Jack--------8----------8----------8----------8---------8
ABC------------Specs------------------Bob--------4----------4----------4----------4---------4
ABC------------Test---------------------Bob--------4----------4----------4----------4---------4

The sheet automatically adds all hours, per person, per day and if people are over-allocated for any day conditional formatting kicks in and cells turn red. Amber if they are close to their limit.

This allows the Team Manager to level his teams resources at the start of the week and it demonstrates to the project managers that their work packages are being worked on. Other info is included such as hours assigned to the work package and target completion date.

That's the theory.............The challenge is getting multiple people singing from the same hymn sheet!

Nick
techgeek
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Joined: Wed 12 Nov 2014 8:51 am

Currently, I am using Basecamp and Proofhub as PM tools and found both really helpful for resource management.
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