Module 3

Resourcing Projects:
Abilities Needed when Resourcing Projects:
Project managers need two types of abilities to correctly resource a project.

The first type of skill needed is technical. Various techniques can be used to estimate resource demands,
create a staffing management plan, assign one or more persons to each activity, identify when a person
is assigned too much work at a point in time, schedule a project with limited numbers of key people and
other resources, and compress (speed up) a project schedule.

The second type of skill needed is behavioral. As you might guess, many behavioral issues are involved
in completing project resourcing tasks such as:

• Selecting the right people

• Identifying exactly what each person needs to accomplish

• Ensuring each person either has the capability needed or developing that person to be capable

• Dealing with difficult individual work schedules

• Getting people to work overtime when there are conflicts

• Making honest and open estimates of the amount of work required to complete an activity

• Assembling an effective team

• Dealing with people from diverse backgrounds

• Deciding where each person will work

• Deciding how a team that is geographically split can work in an effective virtual manner

a) The Science and Art of Resourcing Projects

The science and art of project resourcing are to perform the technical and behavioral aspects together
in a manner that reinforces both. A resource-based schedule that is technically brilliant, but has little
acceptance from those who must do the work, has little value. Likewise, an effective project team whose
members have impractical resource assignments is still likely to struggle. If one needs to choose
between the two, a motivated team with poor assignments is more likely to be successful. However,
when both are done well, the project has wonderful prospects. While each specific skill and behavioral
consideration is introduced separately, keep in mind that people are inclined to support what they have
helped to plan. Therefore, when possible, identify your key people as soon as possible and get them
engaged in the planning.

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b) Considerations when Resourcing Projects

As we cover the specific skills and behavioral aspects of resourcing projects, the following ideas should
be kept in mind:

• If some of the key people on a project do not have the skills to participate, managers should help them
develop those skills

. • Projects always have tradeoffs; with regard to resources, time versus human resources versus other
costs versus scope should be considered. Which of these takes precedence on the project you are
planning?

• Project managers need to understand resource limitations to prevent over-promising. Often, after
activities are tentatively scheduled and it appears that the project can be completed by a particular date.
However, the schedule may be unrealistic if enough resources are not available at key points in time.

• People are often a large portion of total project cost. This is especially true when a project requires
special knowledge.

c Activity- versus Resource-Dominated Schedules

All project schedules are based in part on the individual activities and in part on the number of human
resources who are available when needed. However, in some circumstances, the schedule is based
more on the activities, and in others it is based more on the resource limits. Some organizations use
critical chain or agile in situations where the schedule is dominated more by resources.

Estimate Resource Needs

A starting point in resourcing a project is to estimate how many resources of each type and skill or
knowledge level are needed. The PMBOK task estimate activity resource is “the process of estimating
the types and quantities of material, human resources, equipment, or supplies required to perform each
activity.” This can be accomplished at either a detailed or an overview level. When a project team
determines a detailed list of activities that must be performed, it makes sense to ask what type of person
(by specific knowledge or skill) is needed to perform each of the activities. However, when a project
team does not identify individual activities, they still need to determine how many resources and what
knowledge and skill each needs to complete the project. If the team uses rolling wave planning, they
probably develop detailed resource requirements for the early part of the project for which they have
identified specific activities, and less detailed requirements for later project phases for which the activity
detail is not yet as specific. When estimating resource needs, the team needs to make sure they have
considered support needs as well such as information systems and human resources. Some types of
workers have specific constraints placed upon how they are hired, scheduled, and released. Co-located

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teams and highly skilled resources often require more detailed resource planning. Many issues may be
involved in securing specific knowledge or skills. When estimating resource needs, it is wise to include
time to communicate between activities as well as time to perform activities.

Plan Human Resource Management

Plan Human Resource Management is “the process of identifying and documenting project roles,
responsibilities, required skills, reporting relationships, and creating a staffing management plan.”
Roles and responsibilities for project participants can be documented in role descriptions. These often
include title, assigned duties, and limits of authority as shown in Exhibit 8.2.

A staffing management plan is “a component of the human resource plan that describes when and how
project team members will be acquired and how long they will be needed.”3 The staffing management
plan addresses how to identify potential internal and/or external human resources for the project;
determine the availability of each; and decide how to handle timing issues with regard to building up,
developing, rewarding, and releasing the project team.

a] Identify Potential Resources

Identifying people who might work on a project differs significantly from one organization to another.
Many organizations are staffed in a lean manner and have few people from which to choose. In a small
organization, one particular person may often be the logical choice for certain types of work on a project.
However, in larger organizations and in situations where outside resources may be hired, identifying
potential people becomes a bigger issue. Whatever the situation, a project manager needs to understand
who is potentially available to work on her project. A project manager keeps in mind the estimated
resources needed when identifying the people who could potentially work on the project. This
information can include factors such as:

• Work functions (may include job titles and range of responsibilities)

• Professional discipline (may include degrees and professional certifications)
• Skill level (may include experience and performance ratings)

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• Physical location (may include willingness to relocate and travel)
• Organizational/administrative unit (may include costs and contractual issues)

b] Determine Resource Availability

Once the potential resources have been identified and compared to the estimated resource needs, it is
necessary to discover if the identified people are available and to secure their commitment. This is
necessary even for internal projects because multiple projects often choose resources from the same
resource pool. A schedule is preliminary until needed resources are committed to the project. In terms
of resource availability, full- and part-time resources as well as internal and external resources may be
available. If the new project is of higher priority than an existing project, resources that were already
committed may be freed up.

c Decide Timing Issues when Resourcing Projects

Projects, because of their temporary nature and unique outputs, have timing issues unlike those of
ongoing operations. Early in the project, one timing issue is when to bring people on board. Bringing
them on before they are needed can be costly. However, if the project manager takes a chance with an
important resource and that person is not available, the schedule will probably be delayed. The general
solution to the first timing issue is to assign key players as quickly as possible. This helps establish good
project planning, effective project culture, and early project progress.

Project Team Composition Issues

Project teams are often composed of people from many sources—both within and outside a parent
company. Several of these issues, such as who will be on the project and where each will be physically
located, are best considered when selecting team members.

a Cross-Functional Teams

Projects often require cross-functional teams since the work of many projects requires input from
multiple disciplines. When people from different backgrounds work together, misunderstandings often
arise. An engineer may be predisposed to look at an issue one way, while an accountant may look at the
same issue a different way. This may be due to education, experience, and/or personality. A project
manager may feel sometimes that she is a translator between various functions that are working on the
project. It is useful for project managers to develop an ability to understand and speak effectively with
various technical experts. The project manager is not the expert, but she must understand the experts,
be able to communicate with them, and have the experts trust her judgment.

b Co-Located Teams

Another team issue is where everyone physically sits. Teams are co-located if the members are assigned
work spaces near each other. Project managers and teams can often take advantage of many modern

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methods for communicating from anywhere on the planet. These methods are used often, especially for
larger decisions. However, many minor decisions are made every day on projects. Many times, a person
might not feel that something is important enough to create a document or make a phone call. Co-
location helps to create these opportunities for easy communications. On some projects, members of a
supplier company and/or representatives from the customer may have a desk in the project work space.

c Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are also common and represent the opposite approach. Members of virtual teams do not
meet face to face very often. Sometimes a project requires the expertise of many far-flung people, and
it is impractical to have them all work in the same area. These teams require many forms of
communications. Many people report that if they have met another person face to face even once, they
feel they can relate better to that person. Therefore, even for far-flung teams, it is common to bring
people together once for a chartering or project kickoff session. Of course, some project managers travel
frequently to allow for regularly scheduled face-to-face contact with important team members,
customers, and suppliers.

d Outsourcing

Many project managers are faced with the prospect of not finding the necessary talent within their
organization. When that is the case, project managers often need to hire expertise from one or more
other organizations. Outsourcing can allow a project to bring in talent from anywhere in the world, but
it can also lead to some tense situations.

Budgeting Projects:

Plan Cost Management

Once the overall cost is estimated, the next step is to develop the budget by aggregating the costs and
determining the project’s cash flow needs. Project managers also need to establish a system to report
and control project costs.

Cost and schedule are closely related. Sometimes, the two move in the same direction. For example,
when a schedule calls for materials to be delivered, or for workers to perform, money needs to be
available to pay for the materials or workers. Sometimes, they move in opposite directions. For example,
if a project needs to be completed earlier than planned, more money will probably need to be found to
pay for overtime.

Plan cost management is “the process that establishes the policies, procedures, and documentation for
planning, managing, expending, and controlling project costs.” Cost planning entails developing a cost
management plan for your project. The cost management plan is “a component of the project
management plan that describes how costs will be planned, structured, and controlled.”

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Estimate Cost

Estimate cost is “the process of developing an approximation of the monetary resources needed to
complete project activities.”4 Cost estimating is linked closely with scope, schedule, and resource
planning. To understand cost well, a project manager needs to understand what the work of the project
includes, what schedule demands exist, and what people and other resources can be used. As more of
this detail becomes known, the cost estimates can be more precise.

To estimate project costs accurately, the project manager must understand the various types of cost, the
timing and accuracy of cost estimates, the different methods that can be employed to estimate costs,
and a variety of cost estimating issues.

a Types of Cost

Costs can be better understood by considering various types of classifications such as those shown in
Exhibit 9.1.

FIXED VERSUS VARIABLE COSTS

Cost can first be classified as either being fixed or variable. Fixed costs are those that remain the same
regardless of the size or volume of work. For example, if you need to buy a computer for your project,
the cost is the same regardless of how much you use it. Variable costs are those that vary directly with
volume of use. For example, if you were building a cement wall, the cost of the cement would vary
directly with the size of the wall.

DIRECT VERSUS INDIRECT COSTS

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A second classification divides project costs into direct and indirect costs. Direct costs are those that
only occur because of the project and are often classified as either direct labor or other direct costs. For
example, direct labor includes workers who are hired specifically to work on the project and who will
be either assigned to a new project or released when the project is complete. Other direct costs may
include such items as materials, travel, consultants, subcontracts, purchased parts, and computer time.
Indirect costs are those that are necessary to keep the organization running, but are not associated with
one specific project. The salaries of the company executives and the cost of company buildings, utilities,
insurance, and clerical assistance are example

RECURRING VERSUS NONRECURRING COSTS

The third cost comparison is recurring versus nonrecurring costs. Recurring costs are those that repeat
as the project work continues, such as the cost of writing code or laying bricks. Nonrecurring costs are
those that happen only once during a project, such as developing a design that, once approved, guides
the project team

REGULAR VERSUS EXPEDITED COSTS

A fourth cost comparison is regular or expedited. Regular costs are preferred and occur when progress
can be made by normal work hours and purchasing agreements. Expedited costs occur when the project
must be conducted faster than normal and overtime for workers and/or extra charges for rapid delivery
from suppliers are necessary.

Accuracy and Timing of Cost Estimates

Project managers need to understand when cost estimates should be developed, how accurate they need
to be, and how they will be used. During project initiation, many project managers need to develop cost
estimates to have their project charters approved. At this point, very little detail is understood regarding
the project, so the estimates are only approximate. However, as the scope becomes well defined in the
work breakdown structure (WBS), schedules are planned, and specific resources are assigned, the
project manager knows much more and can estimate more precisely.

Determine Budget

Once the project costs have been estimated, it is time to establish the project budget. Determine budget
is “the process of aggregating the estimated costs of individual activities or work packages to establish
an authorized cost baseline.” To develop the budget, the project manager starts by aggregating all of the
various costs. Once those are totalled, it is time to determine how much money is required for reserve
funds. Finally, the project manager must understand cash flow— both in terms of funding and
requirements for costs.

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Establishing Cost Control

The approved project budget with contingency reserves (and any amount of management reserve that
has already been approved) serves as a baseline for project control. The budget shows both how much
progress is expected and how much funding is required at each point in time. These are used for
establishing project control. Control cost is “the process of monitoring the status of the project to update
the project costs and managing changes to the cost baseline.” When establishing cost control, a typical
measuring point is a milestone. Major milestones are often identified in the milestone schedule in the
project charter, and additional milestones may be identified in constructing the project schedule. Project
managers can use the cash flow projections they have made to determine how much funding they expect
to need to reach each milestone. This can then be used for determining how well the project is
progressing.

What Is Risk Management?

Risk management is an arm of project management that deals with managing potential project risks.
Managing your risks is arguably one of the most important aspects of project management.

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The risk management process has these main steps:

• Risk Identification: The first step to manage project risks is to identify them. You’ll need to
use data sources such as information from past projects or subject matter experts’ opinions to
estimate all the potential risks that can impact your project.

• Risk Assessment: Once you have identified your project risks, you’ll need to prioritize them
by looking at their likelihood and level of impact.

• Risk Mitigation: Now it’s time to create a contingency plan with risk mitigation actions to
manage your project risks. You also need to define which team members will be risk owners,
responsible for monitoring and controlling risks.

• Risk Monitoring: Risks must be monitored throughout the project life cycle so that they can
be controlled.

What Is a Risk Management Plan?

A risk management plan defines how your project’s risk management process will be executed. That
includes the budget, tools and approaches that will be used to perform risk identification, assessment,
mitigation and monitoring activities.

A risk management plan usually includes:

• Methodology: Define the tools and approaches that will be used to perform risk management
activities such as risk assessment, risk analysis and risk mitigation strategies.

• Risk Register: A risk register is a chart where you can document all the risk identification
information of your project.

• Risk Breakdown Structure: It’s a chart that allows you to identify risk categories and the
hierarchical structure of project risks.

• Risk Assessment Matrix: A risk assessment matrix allows you to analyze the likelihood and
the impact of project risks so you can prioritize them.

• Risk Response Plan: A risk response plan is a project management document that explains the
risk mitigation strategies that will be employed to manage your project risks.

• Roles and responsibilities: The risk management team members have responsibilities as risk
owners. They need to monitor project risks and supervise their risk response actions.

• Budget: Have a section where you identify the funds required to perform your risk management
activities.

• Timing: Include a section to define the schedule for the risk management activities.

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How to Make a Risk Management Plan

For every web design and development project, construction project or product design, there will be
risks. That’s truly just the nature of project management. But that’s also why it’s always best to get
ahead of them as much as possible by developing a risk management plan. The steps to make a risk
management plan are outlined below.

1. Risk Identification

Identify Risks: Once the risk management planning is in place, it is time to begin identifying
specific risks. Identify risks is “the process of determining which risks might affect the project
and documenting their characteristics.” Project managers are ultimately responsible for
identifying all risks, but often they rely upon subject matter experts to take a lead in identifying
certain technical risk

Risk identification occurs at the beginning of the project planning phase, as well as throughout
the project life cycle. While many risks are considered “known risks,” others might require
additional research to discover.

Risk Analyses

If a project team is serious about risk identification, they will uncover quite a few risks. Next,
the team needs to decide which risks are major and need to be managed carefully, as opposed
to those minor risks that can be handled more casually. The project team should determine how
well they understand each risk and whether they have the necessary reliable data. Ultimately,
they must be able to report the major risks to decision makers.

Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis

Perform qualitative risk analysis is “the process of prioritizing risks for further analysis or
action by assessing and combining their probability and impact.” All project teams should
perform this task. If they understand enough about the risks at this point, they proceed directly
to risk response planning for the major risks

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN MAJOR AND MINOR RISKS

The primary questions project teams use in qualitative risk analysis are “how likely is this risk
to happen?” and “if it does happen, how big will the impact be?”

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CAUSE-AND-EFFECT DIAGRAM

A tool that is useful in this analysis is the cause-and-effect diagram. Many project teams use
this diagram to identify possible causes for a risk event. An example is shown in Exhibit 10.11.

Plan Risk Responses

Once risks have been identified and analyzed, the project team decides how they will handle
each risk. A plan risk response is “the process of developing options and actions to enhance
opportunities and reduce threats to project objectives.” This is often a creative time for project
teams as they decide how they will respond to each major risk. Sometimes a team develops
multiple strategies for a single risk because they do not believe one strategy will reduce the
threat or exploit the opportunity as much as the stakeholders would like. The team may decide
that it is not worth the effort to completely eliminate a threat. In those cases, the goal is to
reduce the threat to a level that the sponsor and other stakeholders deem acceptable.

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Strategies for Responding to Risks

Many possible strategies can be developed for dealing with project risks, it helps to classify the
strategies. Common risk strategies are shown in Exhibit 10.12.

PROJECT QUALITY PLANNING AND PROJECT KICKOFF

Development of Contemporary Quality Concepts

The contemporary approach to quality management has evolved first from the teachings of
several quality “gurus” from the 1950s through the 1980s and then through various frameworks
popularized during the last 25 years.

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What is project quality management?
Project quality management is the process of continually measuring the quality of all
activities and taking corrective action until the team achieves the desired quality. Quality
management processes help to:
• Control the cost of a project
• Establish standards to aim for
• Determine steps to achieve standards
Effective quality management of a project also lowers the risk of product failure or
unsatisfied clients.

Project quality management plan.

Most project managers intend to create the best possible product or service. But even the
most skilled, educated teams, with the most modern tools, may fail without the right project
quality management plan in place.
Measuring quality may seem like something you can’t do until after the project is complete.
However, project quality management should be planned from the beginning and monitored
throughout with these three quality management processes:
• Quality planning
• Quality assurance
• Quality control
Quality planning.
A good quality management plan starts with a clear definition of the goal of the project. First,
be clear on what the product or deliverable is supposed to accomplish. Then, ask yourself:
• What does it look like?
• What is it supposed to do?
• How do you measure customer satisfaction?
• How do you determine whether the project was successful?
Answering these questions and others will help you identify and define quality requirements,
allowing you to discuss the approach and plans needed to achieve those goals.
This includes:
• Assessing the risks to success
• Setting high standards
• Documenting everything
Also key is defining the methods and tests to achieve, control, predict, and verify success. Be
sure to include quality management tasks in the project plan and delegate these tasks to
workgroups and/or individuals to report and track quality metrics.

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Quality assurance.
Quality assurance provides evidence to stakeholders that all quality-related activities are
being done as defined and promised. It ensures safeguards are in place to guarantee all
expectations regarding quality outputs will be met.

Quality assurance is done to the products and services delivered by a project, as well as the
processes and procedures used to manage the project. The team can do this through systems
such as a process checklist or a project audit.
Quality assurance tests use a system of metrics to determine whether the quality management
plan is proceeding acceptably. By using both qualitative and quantitative metrics, you can
effectively measure project quality with customer satisfaction.
Quality control in project management.
Quality control involves operational techniques meant to ensure quality standards. This
includes identifying, analyzing, and correcting problems. While quality assurance occurs
before a problem is identified, quality control is reactionary. It occurs after a problem has been
identified and suggests methods of improvement.
It measures specific project outputs and determines compliance with applicable standards. It
also identifies project risk factors, their mitigation, and ways to prevent and eliminate
unsatisfactory performance.
Quality control can also ensure the project is on budget and on schedule. You can monitor
project outputs through peer reviews and testing.

Project quality tools:

Quality tools for project management help companies assess the qualitative standards of their
products and services. It helps them identify the commonly occurring problems in their
operations and their root causes and analyze data regarding the same to devise effective
solutions. There are seven tools
1. Flow Chart
It is a graphical description of workflow steps. So it can describe the steps of any process
through graphical symbols which are connected to each other by paths that represent the
direction of the workflow. The symbols can be circles, rectangles, diamonds or any other shapes
which must be predefined to make the flowchart easy for understanding.
2. Pareto Diagram
It is a special vertical chart that is divided into categories that show all possible probabilities
or events that can occur. Categories are ordered by the frequency of each category from high
frequency on the left side of the vertical axis to the low frequency on the right side of it. Pareto
depends on the rule of 80/20, which proves that 80/100 of problems come from 20/100 of
causes. So when we know that 20/100 of the causes and give more attention and resources to
avoid them, we will solve 80/100 of the errors and problems.

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3. Histogram
It is a tool for showing the central tendency, statistical distribution, and dispersion of a given
set of measurements that will be shown on a vertical bar chart. It is very useful when we want
to know which categories have a larger frequency.

4. Cause and Effect Diagram (Ishikawa or Fishbone)

It is a diagram that represents the cause and effect of a fishbone. Its head represents the
problem or objective and the body represents the causes of the problem or the actions that
should be performed to reach the goal or objective at the head of the fishbone. When we find
a problem with any process such as a process variation or an increasing number of defects,
we can use the fishbone to find the source of the problem.

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5. Checksheets (Tally sheets)
The check sheet is a sheet that contains items of inspections and tests and the attribute that
each test can result in. The acceptance criteria of each test must be listed on the sheet to be a
guide for determining if the inspected item of the sample such as a piece of code in the
software project has passed a test item (such as a unit test). Then we gather the frequencies of
each defect and represent them in Pareto Chart.
6. Scatter Diagram
A Scatter diagram (called also Correlation Diagram) is a diagram represented by two axes X
and Y. So any measurement or data shown in Scatter Diagram is represented by a pair of (X,
and Y). The correlation between x and y shown is based on the rule that Y is dependent on X
but X is not dependent on Y. So there are many types of correlations such as positive
correlation (proportional), negative correlation (Inverse), or pattern of no correlation (Zero
Correlation). An example of a positive correlation is- the weight of the human and its relation
to his age (between one year and 40).
7. Control Chart
When we want to determine if a process is stable or not, we use a control chart. It consists
of-
1. Upper Specification Limits (USL) and Lower Specification Limits (LSL) which come
from specification
2. Upper Control Limits (UCL) and Lower Control Limits (LCL) which come from
statistical calculation +_3 standard deviation above and below mean
3. Mean which equals UCL+LCL/2

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Project Kick-off Meeting
Project kick-off meeting is the one of the first and most important meetings that happens in a
project or even at the beginning of a phase of a project. Kick-off meetings generally are held
once the project planning is completed by the project team.
Starting a project without a kick-off meeting is like setting off on a trip without any concrete
plan.
Kick-off meeting is planned as the first major meeting, where the project manager invites all
important stakeholders including the sponsor, internal & external customers, different
functional groups who will be involved in the execution of the project. Kick-off meeting is
carried out to bring all stakeholders to a common understanding about the project.
Some of the points which are addressed in a typical kick-off meeting includes but not limited
to following:
• Project Background and Business Need
• Project Objectives
• Customer background and their expectation
• Introducing the project team to all stakeholders and vice versa
• Project Plan presentation
• Expectations from different stakeholders
• Roles and responsibility of different stakeholders (beyond the project team)
• Collaboration and communication model
• Requesting for support from different stakeholder groups for project success.
A project kick-off meeting generally is done after planning is done, so that the detailed plan
can be presented to all stakeholders and is used as an opportunity to seek support and buy-in

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from all stakeholders. It may be done once in a project before the execution phase is about to
begin. Or kick-off may be done for each phase of the project as well.
Kick-off meeting being the most important meeting for starting the project; it must be
planned very well.
What is a baseline in project management?
A baseline in project management is a clearly defined starting point for your project plan. It is
a fixed reference point to measure and compare your project’s progress against. This allows
you to assess the performance of your project over time.
For example, let’s say your project is on target to finish in six weeks. Is that good or bad? If
your schedule baseline has a four-week completion, you can tell that there is a problem, and
your team may need to make adjustments to speed up your progress.
A project baseline typically has three components: schedule, cost, and scope. Often, these
three baselines are separately monitored, controlled, and reported to ensure each is on track.
When fully integrated, it may be referred to as a performance measurement baseline (PMB).
How can Microsoft Project be used for project management?
Microsoft Project is project management software that's used to create schedules, project
plans, manage resources and keep track of time. It has features such as Gantt charts, kanban
boards and project calendars for project management professionals
• Details explained in PM notes page 58 onwards

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