- As CIO, you oversee a department that lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services.
- More projects are approved by the steering committee (or equivalent) than your department realistically has the capacity for, and you and your staff have little recourse to push back. If you have a PMO – and that PMO is one of the few that provides usable resource capacity projections – that information is rarely used to make strategic approval and prioritization decisions.
- As a result, project quality and timelines suffer, and service delivery lags. Your staff are overallocated, but you lack statistical evidence because of incomplete estimates, allocations, and very little accurate data.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- IT’s capacity for new project work is largely overestimated. Much of IT’s time is lost to tasks that go unregulated and untracked (e.g. operations and support work, break-fixes and other reactive work) before project work is ever approved. When projects are approved, it is done so with little insight or concern for IT’s capacity to realistically complete that work.
- The shift to matrix work structures has strained traditional methods of time tracking. Day-to-day demand is chaotic, and staff are pulled in multiple directions by numerous people. As fast-paced, rapidly changing, interruption-driven environments become the new normal, distractions and inefficiencies interfere with productive project work and usable capacity data.
- The executive team approves too many projects, but it is not held to account for this malinvestment of time. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink or swim, as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand for new services and projects with their finite supply of working hours.
Impact and Result
- Instill a culture of capacity awareness. For years, the project portfolio management (PPM) industry has helped IT departments report on demand and usage, but has largely failed to make capacity part of the conversation. This research helps inject capacity awareness into project and service portfolio planning, enabling IT to get proactive about constraints before overallocation spirals, and project and service delivery suffers.
- Build a sustainable process. Efforts to improve resource management often falter when you try to get too granular too quickly. Info-Tech’s approach starts at a high level, ensuring that capacity data is accurate and usable, and that IT’s process discipline is mature enough to maintain the data, before drilling down into greater levels of precision.
- Establish a capacity book of record. You will ultimately need a tool to help provide ongoing resource visibility. Follow the advice in this blueprint to help with your tool selection, and ensure you meet the reporting needs of both your team and executives.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.5/10
Overall Impact
$415,678
Average $ Saved
40
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona
Guided Implementation
10/10
$34,250
5
This is my 3rd InfoTech Workshop lead by Elvis Celic, who is amazing! His knowledge of the tools provided by InfoTech and his expertise and experi... Read More
Oregon Public Defense Services Commission
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1.37M
120
Long was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. Saved us a lot of time getting to a quick solution for our project needs around resourcing.
Carver County, MN
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,960
4
Lincoln Electric System
Workshop
8/10
$13,700
2
We are at a low maturity state for resource planning today so this will actually consume more of our time since we don't really have a process toda... Read More
CPS Energy
Workshop
10/10
$13,700
55
Bill is a very knowledgeable, patient, and thorough workshop facilitator. His ability to tailor the content before the workshop to meet our organiz... Read More
Public Investment Corporation SOC LTD.
Guided Implementation
8/10
$37,675
14
Inter-related Tools that are ready. Knowledgeable analyst
Queen's University
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
20
Long has a great perspective and was able to clearly articulate the value of the tools and how they would relate to our particular context. The too... Read More
California Department of Health Care Services
Workshop
10/10
$1.23M
110
Elvis has a wealth of experience and knowledge in Portfolio and Resource Management. The information he presented was easy to understand and follow... Read More
Amkor Technologies
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1.37M
75
InfoTech's Technical Counselor was instrumental in helping to establish Amkor's IT PMO Portfolio Management department and processes. We were ab... Read More
City of Carlsbad
Workshop
10/10
N/A
N/A
This topic is something we have never tackled before. So it's hard to quantify how much time or money it would save us. I suspect taking on the pro... Read More
Parks Canada
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
29
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Workshop
9/10
$23,500
10
Best part was the discussions. Paul did a great job facilitating much needed conversations amongst our different managers.
Alterra Mountain Company
Workshop
9/10
$15,755
65
A few great points to call out - Matt and his excellent facilitation skills, knowledge and bringing the team along on the journey. The tools and te... Read More
Montana Department of Revenue
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,399
5
With the exception of the meeting being brief there is no worst part. The best part is the affinity that Matt has for our PPM challenges at the De... Read More
Sherritt International Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$5,000
10
Our analyst listened to all of the teams input and provided some great guidance and tools on achieving our goals.
Colliers International Canada
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
I loved the experience. The Financial impact and the estimated amount of time saved are difficult to provide an answer for as our case involves a ... Read More
Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Company d/b/a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana
Workshop
10/10
$59,849
50
Best - very practical, Bill is a very good facilitator and helped us talk through some very tactical and logistical issues.
Morrison Hershfield Group Inc.
Workshop
8/10
$100K
20
Best was the process that we need to go through to have a true resource management approach Worst was the fact that some people got shy on certain... Read More
Lee County Clerk of Courts
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
I'm looking forward to establishing realistic IT management practices by utilizing the resource management tools I learned about today. I already ... Read More
Agriculture Financial Services Corporation
Guided Implementation
10/10
$25,000
35
Best part is having an analyst to continue to get direction and confirmation that I was making progress. Sometimes it is hard to celebrate the lit... Read More
Holy Name Medical Center
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Best: she listens and provides very good feedback Worse: none
Public Investment Corporation SOC LTD.
Guided Implementation
8/10
$8,897
5
Populating the template for the first time is always the worst. It needs time commitment. Once done, its very good to see how the information come... Read More
Libro Credit Union
Guided Implementation
10/10
$25,000
105
Thank you Travis for walking me through the tool, you were patient, answered all my questions, set up follow up meetings and followed through on yo... Read More
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
20
knowledgeable consultation and useful content. Ugbad was great to work with and we look gorward to speaking with her in the future.
Virginia Department of the Treasury
Guided Implementation
10/10
$3,000
12
This was just a couple of small meetings, but for an Agency that does not have the budget for large tools, this was very informative and provided m... Read More
Kentucky Housing Corporation
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
5
There is not a worst part for all of my conversations with Matt has always been helpful and concise. Having the ability to obtain tools and documen... Read More
Sunflower Bank
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,141
10
Gokul is so easy to talk to and bounce ideas off. His in depth knowledge of project management shows with each of our conversations. I find mysel... Read More
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, Inc.
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
N/A
I appreciated having the sounding board and insights from our meetings. The biggest challenge was on my end in just being able to make the time to... Read More
Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield
Guided Implementation
5/10
N/A
N/A
City of Virginia Beach
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,519
2
No worst part, and the best part was the advice to start using change requests when lack of resources impact the projects deliverables.
Workshop: Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand
The Purpose
- Obtain a high-level view of current resource management practices.
- Identify current and target states of resource management maturity.
- Perform an in-depth time-tracking audit and gain insight into how time is spent on project versus non-project work to calculate realized capacity.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Assess current distribution of accountabilities in resource management.
- Delve into your current problems to uncover root causes.
- Validate capacity and demand estimations with a time-tracking survey.
Activities
Outputs
Perform a root-cause analysis of resourcing challenges facing the organization.
- Root-cause analysis
Create a realistic estimate of project capacity.
- Tab 2 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, the Time Audit Workbook, and survey templates
Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level.
- Tabs 3 and 4 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
Validate your supply and demand assumptions by directly surveying your resources.
- Complete the Time Audit Workbook
Module 2: Design a Realistic Resource Management Process
The Purpose
- Construct a resource management strategy that aligns with your team’s process maturity levels.
- Determine the resource management tool that will best support your processes.
Key Benefits Achieved
Activities
Outputs
Action the decision points in Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management.
- A wireframe for a right-sized resource management strategy
Review resource management tool options, and depending on your selection, prepare a vendor demo script or review and set up Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.
- A vendor demo script or Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.
Customize a workflow and process steps within the bounds of your seven dimensions and informed by your tool selection.
- A customized resource management process and Resource Management Playbook.
Module 3: Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices
The Purpose
- Develop a plan to pilot your new processes to test whether you have chosen the right dimensions for maintaining resource data.
- Develop a communication plan to guide you through the implementation of the strategy and manage any resistance you may encounter.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify and address improvements before officially instituting the new resource management strategy.
- Identify the other factors that affect resource productivity.
- Implement a completed resource management solution.
Activities
Outputs
Develop a pilot plan.
- Process Pilot Plan Template
Perform a resource management start/stop/continue exercise.
- A refined resource management process informed by feedback and lessons learned
Develop plans to mitigate executive stakeholder, team, and structural factors that could inhibit your implementation.
- Stakeholder management plan
Finalize the playbook and customize a presentation to help explain your new processes to the organization.
- Resource Management Communications Template