7 Tips for Better Resource Scheduling

What are resources? They’re everything you need for a project. That includes people, places and things.

In other words, resources are essential. Dealing with them and coordinating their use is one of the main hurdles that project managers have to clear if they’re going to cross that project finish line.

Resources will plug into every phase of your project. They’re part of the planning, scheduling and executing of the project. A sound methodology is required in order to have the resources you need when you need them. You know where this is going. Yes, resource scheduling.

It’s hard to pinpoint the most important aspect of project management. Everything feels essential. But there are definitely some pillars that hold up the project and carry more weight than others. Resource scheduling is one. We have a few tips that will help you manage your resources better.

1. Use a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

You can’t start to schedule your resources until you know how many you’ll need and when you’ll use them. This involves collecting every task that leads to your final deliverable. It might seem a daunting task, but using a WBS makes sure you don’t neglect any steps. It’s a tree diagram with your final deliverable on top and beneath that, the various branches that lead to it. The more complete your list, the more accurate your resource schedule.

Build a detailed schedule complete with WBS on ProjectManager.

2. Try Resource Smoothing

Once you have all the steps, there are many ways to schedule resources. One technique is resource smoothing, which focuses on the time constraint over all others. Here, the deadline is king. This practice is best applied when things must be done on time, even if it means delaying some work. While it removes some flexibility in your schedule, it tends to make scheduling more efficient and cost-effective.

3. Practice Resource Leveling

Another resource optimization technique to use is called resource-levelling. This is used when you have enough resources on hand to complete the project. It then distributes the resources over the work evenly.

This helps to improve morale and makes the schedule both realistic and achievable. That might happen by shortening or loosening the schedule, the deadline might even change, but that’s okay because you’re not adding capacity.

4. Be Aware of Constraints

There are constraints on any project, such as the triple constraint of time, cost and scope. All of these forces are working on your resources, so the better you can define how they’ll be impacting the tasks in the previous tip, the tighter your resource schedule will be.

5. Know How Many Resources You Need

Again, going back to your task list, make a determination as to how many resources each task will require.

What type of resource is it? How many of each will be required to finish the task? This figure can be numerical, as in the quantity needed, but it can also be expressed in time. You might need the resource for an hour or weeks. This all should be noted.

6. Control Availability of Resources

You want to control the future availability of resources. To do this requires knowing how much capacity you have. That is, for example, how much work your team can accomplish over a specific timeframe.

Do team members have time off scheduled over that period? Are there holidays? The more data around the availability of your resources, the more you can manage the schedule for your resources.

7. Assign Your Resources Wisely

The final tip applies to assigning your resources after you’ve listed tasks, identified constraints, know how many resources you’ll need and their availability. At this point, you have the information necessary to build a resource schedule that can avoid costly bottlenecks.

Therefore, assign with care. Depending on your resources, demand and capacity, due dates might need to change or even be delayed. A resource schedule can work better than tea leaves in divining your project’s future.