You’ve got well defined short and long term goals.  Excellent!  Now you’re ready to rock and roll and get there!!  You want to get there now.  You know that by reaching your goals, whether they are process transformation and maturity or implementing new and innovative technology, you’ll improve your business.  You will be more agile and better able to drive efficiencies and gain market share.

What do you do?  Throw resources at it to get it done, right?  Maybe, but not necessarily…

2 old adages come to mind.  The first, “Fast, cheap, good…pick two” is a great one to keep in mind.  I think it speaks for itself…and that it goes hand in hand with “9 women can’t make a baby in one month!”  Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to team up with 8 other ladies right now and only have to be pregnant for one month!  Sadly, throwing more resources, or money, at a project (or problem) does not necessarily speed things up.  Not to say that tactic is always wrong, just that there are more things to consider than just adding bodies.

It is critical to ensure that during your planning phase you are realistic about what kind of resources you need.  Please, please don’t ever try to skip or shortcut this important project phase.  Ever.  Ever, ever!! Thank you.  What skill sets do you need?  Do two resources with less experience really equal a single resource with more experience?? Not all resources are created equal…even when the resources have the same title and look similar on paper. 

It is important to know your resources individually as much as possible.  Soft skills must factor into the equation. The overall dynamic of a team is one of the most important success factors of any project and must be a serious consideration when putting resources together. We all know of individuals that are fantastic, but who, when put together, can completely derail a project.

Where will you get the resources?  What is their availability? What tasks can be done concurrently and which tasks have a start to finish or other dependency?  Which tasks can benefit from several people doing them together and which tasks must be completed by a single individual? What about several tasks that strictly speaking have no dependencies and could be done concurrently, but that for quality and consistency (fast, cheap, good…pick two!) should be completed by the same person?…your plan needs to change to have those tasks be start to finish. It may add time initially, but will save you time later in rework to gain the quality and consistency that is so important to the final outcome. 

Another great tip is to, when adding resources to your project plan, only count on resources working 80% of the time. This is not to say that your resources are slacking off playing Farmville or Angry Birds 20% of the time. The 20% accounts for phone calls, emails, meetings, hallway conversations, coffee runs, doctor’s appointments, calls to IT support and the inevitable long hold time, lunches that run long, picking up sick kids from school, a morning off to wait for the repair man during the notorious ‘4 hour service window,’ etc.  This is real life and stuff happens. You’d be wise to factor that into your plan.  We do not, after all, live in a frictionless environment.  If you’re lucky and everything goes 100% smoothly, great, you’re done 20% ahead of schedule!

In summary, when planning a project, it is just as important to carefully plan your resources as it is to plan your scope.  Taking this time up front will save you many migraines along the line and will get you one step closer to a successful project completion. There is a very good chance that if you skip this important resource planning task, you will be adding time to your project on the backend.

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