Project Management ToolBox, 3rd Edition

9RESOURCE PLANNING

Projects depend on resources, both team resources and physical resources. Most large projects do not have all the necessary resources internally; thus, they must procure them. The larger and more complex and project is, the more likely you are to engage in procuring resources from outside the organization. Therefore, to plan and manage your schedule and costs effectively, you need to plan and manage your resources and procurements effectively.

In this chapter we will identify aspects of resources and procurements that need to be analyzed and documented in various plans. These plans support estimates for cost and schedule estimates. The estimates support developing baselines that you will use to compare actual results with planned results.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN

A Resource Management Plan provides guidance for both team and physical resources. It documents the expectations for acquiring and assigning team resources along with information on the type of physical resources needed and how they will be acquired and managed.

Team Resources

Team members are the most important driver of project success. Without the right skill level, number, and availability of resource your project will be challenged and perhaps even fail. Once your scope is defined you can start to identify the roles or positions needed on your project. As more detail is provided you will be able to elaborate this information by including the number of resources needed for each role. By the ...