How to use Resource Scheduling in Project Management?

Resource scheduling is an important task when talking about projects; however, it can be a complex and time-consuming process. This is because the core purpose of resource scheduling includes organizing your team and resources. By resources, we just don’t mean people, but also machinery, facilities, finances, or whatever is needed to execute the projects. As a project manager, you would have experienced that all projects usually need to be executed with limited capacity or resources. Thus, the success of a project depends on how well you manage the resources at hand and if it is scheduled efficiently or not. If your resource scheduling is not efficient, then your plans and project schedules will derail. So, what is the solution for this? Implementing resource scheduling software can be the answer to all these problems. But first, read on to find what do we mean by resource scheduling.

Defining Resource Scheduling

Identifying which resources to use for a project and then coordinating with them is resource scheduling. This is the most important step of resource management. Resource scheduling begins with scheduling the timelines for each task in a project depending on what type of resources are needed and confirming their availability. The catch here is that the project manager needs to balance the availability of resources with his team’s capacity. Why? This is important to keep a project on its pre-determined schedule. Resource scheduling is also useful for setting the duration of various tasks or projects. If a project manager allocates and schedules resources as per the resource capacity, effort, availability, and scope, then he will never face under- and over-allocation issues. Consequently, projects will be completed on time and within the set budget. It also enables in building the team’s morale, fosters healthy work environment, and enhances profitability.

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Steps of Using Resource Scheduling in Project Management

1. Break down the project into tasks and sub-tasks 

The first step to schedule your resources is to identify the tasks needed to be done in a project. Breaking down the overall project into smaller chunks or tasks and sub-tasks with individual timelines helps in attaining the goal. An entire project can seem overwhelming to accomplish and can’t be assigned to a resource. But when you divide it into smaller pieces and milestones, then you can easily assign responsibilities to different team members. Once the list of tasks and sub-tasks is done, you can estimate what type of resources and how many of them are needed to complete all these tasks. A resource management software can ease this process as you can do all this in just a few clicks.

2. What type of resources are needed?

The next step is to decide what all resources you need for the project. For example, human resources, equipment, machinery, and facilities? Do you need some machinery, or loaner equipment, and a conference room for conducting meetings for your project? Will you require IT or tech support throughout the project? Do you need to hire contractors or freelancers to help on the project? Listing all this down helps to do the resource scheduling in an efficient manner. 

3. Look at your resource capabilities

Now, as a project manager, you need to check which resources are available to take on new tasks. This doesn’t mean just looking at people’s calendars or availability. It is important to ensure that the people you shortlist possess the competencies needed for a specific project. For example, you need a couple of graphic designers, and you may find a few people who are available on the timelines you are looking at. However, those designers might not have the skills needed to do that project. The person who has the skills may not be available on the required dates. So how do you go about this? Using a resource scheduler software is the answer to this. This tool acts as a database that lists and tracks the skill set, experience, availability, etc of all the resources across the organization. This helps you to quickly match the tasks with people’s competencies, experience, schedules and get the best fit. 

4. Follow resource levelling

Another technique for resource optimization that is good to execute is called resource levelling. You can use this technique when you have sufficient resources available to complete the tasks or the project. This strategy helps to distribute the resources over the entire project in an even manner. By doing this, you can improve the morale of the team members and create realistic and achievable schedules. Maybe you need to shorten or loosen your schedule or alter the deadlines, but that should be fine as you’re not adding to your overall capacity.

5. Identify the project constraints

In the initial phase, it’s also important to find out if the project should be ideally delivered in phases or milestones, and what will they be? Or if the project needs to be hosted on some specific tech platform? You should also confirm if internal resources and contractors need to be trained about the work or some skills before the project begins. It’s also important to find if there is a good-to-have deadline versus a fixed and final deadline? Identifying these constraints well in advance will help to find ways in which all these can be dealt with or resolved.

6. Assign the resources sensibly

How you assign the resources after listing all the tasks, identifying the probable challenges, and knowing how many resources are required, is very important. Till the project development starts full swing, you have all the data and information needed to create a resource schedule that could avoid any expensive bottlenecks. Hence, assigning resources wisely is very important. As per the resources you assign, your demand, capacity, due timelines might need some alteration or can even be delayed. Resource scheduling is therefore very beneficial for your project’s success and a resource scheduler software can come in handy here.

7. Monitor the actual time spent on various activities

The final step is to monitor how the tasks are being done and how much time is actually being spent on doing so. This can help to make your project run even more seamlessly. If you use a resource management software, you can easily assess how many resources were used for a project. You can also check the time and effort it took to complete the tasks and calculate resource utilization on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. This data can help you to create better schedules for future projects. In addition, implementing time tracking to the resource scheduler software is one of the simplest ways to do this. You can assess if a task is taking longer than you expected, or if your team is being over or under-utilized. Accordingly, this data helps in making necessary changes in future projects.

8. eResource Scheduler – Manage Resource Scheduling with a Leading Resource Scheduler Software

Have you been looking for the right resource management software that can manage your resource utilization, management, and resource scheduling? Your search is over – as eResource Scheduler is your best bet. This tool helps you with detailed project planning, resource scheduling and allocation, utilization, productivity management, time-tracking, etc. By using this leading resource scheduling software, you can plan the availability of the resources, create comprehensive and visual dashboards, and monitor the profitability of your project. This cloud-based tool has brilliant features such as an easy-to-use interface, intuitive design, high configurability, and drag and drops functionality. eResource Scheduler has advanced filters with which you can see which resource has the needed competency and availability. Thus, you can allocate tasks to the best fit or most suitable resources. Take a free trial today and check out how this tool can benefit you.

Company Bio: ENBRAUN is a software product and service company. eResource Scheduler is its Flagship software product.