We are now winding down the data collection phase of our global study on IT resource and capacity management processes and maturity levels. As promised in we will continue to share and preview some of the results and conclusions. This week I took a look at current realized benefits of resource management practices and processes as well as desired and achievable benefits. By overlaying current benefits with targeted future benefits, we can identify the gaps between where the majority of organizations are today with their IT resource management initiatives and where they hope to go. As discussed below, the largest gap relates to the ability of the resource management process to positively impact project outcomes.
To understand current benefits, the following question and choices were provided.
(1) Which business benefits, if any, does your CURRENT resource and capacity management process deliver (check all that apply)?
(2) Given your organizational context, what are the 3 most desirable and achievable business benefits that your IDEAL resource and capacity management process would deliver (check up to 3)?
523 organizations responded to these questions and over 1,200 answers were selected to each question. The results are as follows:
Note: The percentage below indicates the size of the gap which represents the difference between the percentage of respondents identifying the benefit as current or realized and the percentage of respondents indicating the benefit as ideal and relevant (but not yet achieved).
(1) Increased project success rates and improved cycle times via timely assignment of the right resources (25%)
(2) Improved budget and cost management through better planning, tracking and reporting on resource costs (16%)
(3) Ability to accommodate incremental demand with existing resources via more granular and bottom-up project schedule information (13%)
(4) Ability to plan capacity to meet project resource demands (10%).
Organizations are most adept at achieving basic resource visibility, ensuring higher priority projects are resourced and managing individual utilization rates.
As previously indicated, the biggest challenge by far is improving project success rates by ensuring that the right resources are assigned quickly. Organizations struggle with the process of allocating, assigning and deploying resources efficiently and systematically. Resource assignment was described by one respondent as “crisis based.” Based on other response comments there is particular angst in inventorying skills and locating the right resource for the job in a timely manner. By cross-tabulating this benefits information with specific questions regarding resource allocation and assignment processes, we hope to uncover the specific obstacles to increasing successful project outcomes.