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Resource Allocation in Project Management: How to Organize Work Effectively [+ Example]

GanttPRO Team
Resource allocation in project management

One of the essential components of an effective project management process is resource allocation. 

According to LTFE, a training company with educational offerings, it’s one of the top five project management challenges in 2023.

Assigning the right resources to proper activities isn’t as easy as you can think. The process requires preliminary preparation, specific knowledge, and experience. Anyway, professional resource allocation in project management affects successful work realization. 

In this article, you’ll learn what resource allocation in project management is, why it’s important, and how it helps improve your workflow. A detailed example implemented with professional PM software will be the icing on the cake.

Let’s dive in.

What is resource allocation in project management?

Resource allocation in project management is the process of assigning and distributing resources to various tasks and activities within a project. The goal of this process is to ensure that the right resources are available at the right time to complete project tasks effectively and manage possible constraints.

It often happens that projects need more resources, but they are not infinite. Precisely that is why it is crucial to manage and delegate resources to avoid scarcity properly. 

In other words, the resource allocation definition is based on a simple thing: to ensure that projects operate smoothly and meet all the company’s business objectives on time.

By the way, a poll within a German-language TPG webinar (2023) asked where the participants would like to see AI support in project management. 61% said that it should be resource planning.

Now that you know what is meant by resource allocation, let’s talk about its types.

Types of resources

Globally, project management resources can be human and non-human. They are divided into 5 groups:

Let’s have a closer look at each of them.

What is the purpose of resource allocation?

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of resource allocation and leveling in project management. It affects all working processes and helps you avoid missed deadlines and meet business objectives.

Let us make it more clear. Every project consists of tasks. If one of them is completed with a delay, there is a high probability that the entire project will be completed with a delay. And one of the main reasons for missed deadlines is the lack of resources because of its inappropriate allocation.

So, what is the importance of resource allocation? Its main goal boils down to reaching the best results paying the lowest cost. So, constant optimization is the necessary thing while running these processes. 

When you know what it takes to make a project successful, you can effectively plan and manage the optimal amount of employees, materials, money, etc. 

Many large companies that value optimization hire a certain specialist for this purpose — a resource manager. What is his area of responsibility?

While a project manager creates and assigns tasks, a resource manager is accountable for creating a resource management plan and allocating assets to ensure the project’s success.

Resource management helps:

Now let’s identify the strong sides of resource allocation in project management.

Benefits of resource allocation in project management

Effective resource allocation is crucial for completing projects on time and within budget. It makes it an essential aspect of project management to be mastered by professionals.

This process has several benefits, which are mentioned below.

Why is resource allocation in project management important?

The importance of resource allocation in project management is not a topic for long discussions, since most often, managers and teams clearly understand the full significance of this process. No doubt that it directly impacts project success, efficiency, and cost control.

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits of the process, there are several other essential strengths and reasons why project management resource allocation is really important.

Resource allocation methods

There are powerful resource allocation methods that help business owners, managers, and teams distribute and assign required resources, such as personnel, equipment, materials, time, and budget in a systematic and effective manner.

Professional resource allocation in project management can be accomplished through the following methods:

What are the challenges of resource allocation?

A good manager should be able to adapt to market changes to achieve better results. Resource allocation is one of the essential parts of PM, and at the same time, it is the hardest thing to optimize and automate. 

Many professionals are engaged in several projects and sometimes play several roles in them. This fact makes management processes even more complex. 

Below we describe some common resource allocation challenges.

Now is the time to consider specific steps necessary for the proper organization of resources within a project.

How to allocate resources with the help of professional software

After all that you have learned, the question arises: how to do resource allocation in project management properly? And how to make a workflow smoother and get more successful results?

Below, we describe the consistent steps that will help align your workload and improve your workflow. All of these steps can be available with the help of a robust online tool. It would be great if this resource management tool provided a Gantt chart view – a handy timeline that allows for overseeing the whole workflow picture.

One of the professional examples of such software is GanttPRO.

The Gantt chart maker comes with robust project management features, enabling teams to achieve successful outcomes. It is used across various industries, including software development, complex construction projects, events, marketing, and many other fields.

Professionals utilize GanttPRO for project management, task scheduling, event tracking, deadline management, collaboration, as well as advanced resource planning.

Here are the thoughts of George Rossle, a production manager at A+ Construction Pro:

Once you start working with GanttPRO, you will feel confident and professionally prepared, because the functionality of the tool is intuitive and convenient for most users.

In case you want to start working with GanttPRO as quickly as possible, there are pre-made Gantt chart templates for use in many industries and areas.

Project teams rely on GanttPRO to plan projects, manage tasks, and allocate resources effectively, recognizing it as reliable resource management software.

So, let’s explore how to allocate resources in project management step by step.

1. Align on the scope of your project

Do you remember the quote “Well begun is half done” by Aristotle? This phrase actually stands true to different aspects of business, including project management resource allocation.

Thoroughly understanding the scope of your project will help you build a robust foundation for further resource allocation.

To scope a new project, you should clearly realize how complex your project will be and how many resources you will need to accomplish it with success. Understanding the project’s goals, deadlines, and deliverables is rather important. It will help your team get a sense of your project needs to hit all objectives on time and within budget. 

The proper definition of a project scope also helps avoid situations when deliverables exceed the pre-set project scope.

2. Divide your project into tasks and subtasks

The successful strategy of resource allocation in project management ensures that all your resources are managed and allocated on the task level. 

Hence, the next logical step is dividing your project into smaller manageable tasks. Each task should have a fixed start and end date, due date, and budget.

To systemize your tasks in GanttPRO, you can use a work breakdown structure (WBS). After that, you can easily determine task dependencies and mark project milestones within your timeline. It can be easily performed with the help of drag-and-drop.

3. Invite project participants and create virtual resources

Having everything and everyone in one place is an extremely convenient decision. With the robust PM software, you can easily collaborate with your teammates and organize both virtual and labor resources.

In GanttPRO, you can easily invite your team members and set roles, costs, and calendars for them. Creating virtual resources and managing them is just as easy as with people. You can define cost for all resources per hour, per item, or just cost.

4. Assign tasks

Once your tasks are placed on a timeline with all dependencies and milestones, you can distribute them among your team members.

Assigning tasks to responsible teammates in GanttPRO takes a matter of seconds. With a handy Gantt chart with resource allocation the picture of your project becomes clearer.

Assign one or more resources to every task to be sure everything is going to be completed.

Don’t also forget to identify the roles and responsibilities of all the people involved in your project.

If you want to provide your teammates with special rights to view data, you can easily do it in GanttPRO, as it allows for working with different account roles and project rights. 

5. Remember about deadlines

It is crucial to control the timing of each task to complete projects successfully. Even one missed deadline can negatively affect the work of colleagues and the final result.

With resource scheduling tools, you can easily:

These features will help you efficiently distribute work among employees and stay within time frames.

6. Manage workload

Monitoring resource workloads and reallocating them are essential solutions to keep plans within the budget. 

Companies that regularly check and reevaluate their resource allocation have higher chances to create more value for their projects and, eventually, deliver higher returns. Their employees won’t experience burnout or boredom.

In GanttPRO, you can keep track of resource workloads in one place. 

This is highly appreciated by Allan Cid, an experienced project manager, who admits:

An online Gantt chart automatically calculates the workload of each employee and makes it possible to redistribute tasks between team members if needed.

With the drag-and-drop simplicity, it is a matter of seconds to reallocate any resource from your project. This helps when resources are overloaded or underutilized.

All of the steps listed are basic but they can be easily supplemented with additional ones.

Now it’s time to look at these processes using a practical example.

Resource allocation in project management example

Let’s say, our example of resource allocation in project management is related to creating a new game portal. The goal of this portal is to provide a centralized hub for accessing a variety of video games, allowing users to get a range of gaming-related services, such as game downloads, reviews, news, and community forums. 

In this project management resource allocation case, we’re tasked to develop a portal from scratch with a little assistance from a design agency.

Below are the specific steps and what our resource allocation plan in GanttPRO may look like.

1. Defining a project scope

The project scope is pretty clear here, and we have a detailed project plan with granularity to the tasks that need to be completed.

A new gaming portal will contain a hub for accessing 100+ video games and attract over 80K followers from the community in Q1-Q2. 

2. Creating tasks and subtasks

A game portal development project will include parental tasks and smaller subtasks. Here they are:

3. Understanding resources

The project budget is $18K. It involves the participation of the following managers and departments:

Our goal here is to define the most relevant experts and check whether they have enough capacity to join the initiative. 

It’s crucial to take some time to list the things that can go wrong with our allocated resources and see what steps we can take to address those issues and make the allocation process future-proof in advance.

4. Task assigning

The distribution of tasks in our project can occur as follows:

We can set values and cost per hour for human resources and let GanttPRO calculate the cost of the entire project.

5. Deadlines

We should remember that we need to track how much time our team members spend on completing their tasks. Controlling the timing of each task and setting deadlines to complete the portal successfully is very important.

6. Workload management

Now it’s important to review and revise resource allocation to achieve better project value and prevent employee burnout.

In GanttPRO, we can conveniently manage resource workload in a corresponding space. It automatically counts employee workloads and allows for quick task redistribution among team members using friendly drag & drop functionality.

Seems like it is all we wanted to tell you about such an important process as resource allocation in project management.

Make resource allocation in project management a strength for your team and the entire business

By following the steps outlined for effective resource allocation in project management and keeping our example in mind, you can prepare your team for optimal performance and instill confidence in achieving project goals.

While implementing these steps may appear daunting, the advantages of allocation are substantial, particularly when leveraging robust technologies.

To enhance your project management resource allocation expertise, explore professional tools like GanttPRO. It will identify resource overallocation and enable timely adjustments, ensuring your team remains on course and well-balanced.

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