blog - news and thoughts from the team at Paricint

by Andrew Holmes

If you ever happen to find a project manager asleep at their desk, you might want to raise them from their slumber by clapping your hands and then stand back to see what happens. Most apparently wake up shouting ?more resources, I need more resources? without even thinking about it. Isn't it always the case, that project managers always need more resource? I certainly see this on many of the projects and programmes I get involved with. No matter what, the project manager always claims there are not enough resources to finish the job. But is that really the case, and is having more resources the answer? Well maybe, but maybe not.

There are few interesting dynamics when it comes to resourcing which suggests that we as project managers might want to reconsider that classic response. Here are just a few:

• When asked why they leave a project, many project team members state that they are downright bored because they don't have enough work to do. It seems that having lots of resources doesn't equate to getting lots done and without effective and targeted leadership from the project manager, a lot of project resource can be literally wasted
  
  
  
  
• Productivity varies considerably between project team members. For example, it is well known that the productivity of a software developer varies by as much as 1:25. Put into simple terms, this means that whereas it could take one programmer two weeks to hack up some code, it could take another a year (I have seen this first hand on software projects I used to run many years ago, and it is a real nightmare especially when you have a hard deadline to meet). Asking for more resource without at least a basic understanding of the productivity of the potential new team member could be asking for trouble
  
  
  
  
• The tendency to overload the good staff and lighten the load of or even ignore those who are less competent tends to distort the true picture of productivity and progress. There is certainly some truth in the old adage if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. So although it looks like more resources could help, what most project managers what are clones of the productive and effective resources, not more lame dogs
  
  
  
  
  
• The classic Brook's Law (see Fred Brooks and the Mythical Man Month) of throwing more resources at a late running project only to find that the project gets even later is trap many project managers still fall into. It's easy to see why when you consider the additional communication overhead and effort which is required to bring them up to speed and manage them. It is quite amazing to think that the Fred Brook's book, written some 30 years ago, is as relevant today as it was in the 1970s. When a project is running late, it is often better to remove resources; counter intuitive I know, but it works.
  
  

So what should the project manager do to avoid the classic response of always asking for more resource? Well it is a good start to think about using manpower build-up curves as a way of assessing resource requirements (these have to be based on having detailed product and work breakdown structures if they are going to provide you with a true indication of the resources required). This avoids the problems associated with fixed teams when the team will have periods of having too little work to do and having too much. Second, it is well worth taking the trouble to assess productivity of team members. This is not always easy especially on those projects which involve knowledge workers, but it is important. Selecting staff based on productivity as well as skill and capability goes a long way to avoiding the resource shortfalls that are perceived to exist in many projects. And finally it is important to lead and direct the team instead of managing by osmosis. Leadership is a critical skill for the project manager and in some cases issues with resources and their productivity are down to the project manager.

Ideally projects should be optimally resourced, but sometimes being in a project is a bit like being in the trenches of World War I ? hours or boredom followed by minutes of sheer terror. Hopefully your projects aren't like that.

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