Back to Basics Series Resource planning Thomas Sarlandie 2013 02 28 Topics Difference between project planning and resource planning Getting started with resource planning Improving resource planning Intended audience Management teams of small to medium consulting firm doing on-contract work
I wrote this set of slides for coaching sessions I am doing with startups in Senegal.
In this set of slides, I review the difference between project planning and resource planning, how to get started with resource planning and how to improve resource planning.
Those slides will be of interest to the management teams of small services companies that intend to grow quickly.
I have more set of slides coming on the same subject. Follow me on twitter (@sarfata) or check out my website (www.sarfata.org) to get more content.
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Transcript
Back to Basics SeriesResource planningThomas Sarlandie2013 02 28
TopicsDifference between project planning and resource planningGetting started with resource planningImproving resource planning
Intended audienceManagement teams of small to medium consulting firm doing on-contract work
What for?
What for?
Stop working nights
Deliver on-time
What for?
Make sure project start on-time
Maximize team staffing
Avoid peaks/downs in team occupation
Stop working nightsHire before the rush
Deliver on-time
Why is it so hard?
Software development planning is not easy to begin with
It is even more challenging when
developers need to regularly switch from one project to the other
project specifications change regularly
priorities change
Why is it so hard?
Software development planning is not easy to begin with
It is even more challenging when
developers need to regularly switch from one project to the other
project specifications change regularly
priorities change
Planning in the context of a small consulting company is very hard.
Why is it important?
To keep your customers
To keep your employees
So that your company can grow
Why is it important?
To keep your customers
To keep your employees
So that your company can grow
Resource planning is crucial to the future of your company.
Different types of planning
Project planningUseful to:
Organize one project
Forecast “end” time
Follow progress
Not useful to:
Define what a developer needs to do this week
Make sure you have enough developers for all the projects
time
tasks
Spec
time
Dev
Test
Resource planningA different perspective - focused on the resources across all the projects
Useful to:
Allocate resources to projects
Anticipate resources problems:
Over staffing
Under staffing
time
resou
rces
Project A
timeProject B Project CJoe
Sue
Tim
Project A
Project CHolidays
B A
Different types of planningtas
ks
Spec
Dev
Test
time
resou
rces
Project A
timeProject B Project CJoe
Sue
Tim
Project A
Project CHolidays
B A
Both planning serve different purposes. They are both very important.
Getting started with resource planning
0. Define what is a resourceIt is easy to get over excited when modeling your business
Different type of resources: project managers, developers, testers, etc
With different types of seniority: junior, senior, architect, etc
Start simple - In most teams, the bottleneck is the developer
Make a resource planning for the developers only - Do not count project management, artists, etc. - Only one “type” of developer.
1. Choose some units
Standard scenario
A team of 2 to 50+ people
Projects from 1 week to several months
Should work for 90% of small teams
Your number one measurement unit is a man/day
Time step in the planning is week
Hours of work may be a better unit
Use months instead of weeks
Exceptions
Teams who have to work on very small assignments
Ex: Design team works a few hours every week on a very large number of different projects